Homesick
Since you have been raised to new life with
Christ, set your sights on the realities of heaven, where Christ sits in the
place of honor at God’s right hand. Think about the things of heaven, not the things of
earth. For you died to this life, and your real life is
hidden with Christ in God. And when Christ, who is your
life, is revealed to the whole world, you will share in all his glory. (Colossians 3:1-4)
For all we don’t
know about Holden Howie, there’s one thing we do know – he knew his birds would
find their way home. Several times a day the square-bodied, gray-bearded New
Zealander retrieved one of his pigeons from his Auckland aviary. Securing the
feathered courier with one hand, he affixed the correspondence with the other.
Some birds carried as many as five messages at a time, each one written on
cigarette paper. Mr. Howie then released the bird into the South Pacific sky.
It flew straight as a string to its nest on Great Barrier Island.
Between 1898 and
1908, Mr. Howie delivered thousands of messages. His birds were speedy. They
could travel in two hours the distance a boat would spend three days to achieve.
Storms rarely knocked the pigeons off course, and they never called in sick. Most
notably, they were accurate. They could find their nest. Why else would we call
them homing pigeons? Other birds fly faster. Other birds are stronger. Other
birds boast larger plumes or stronger claws. But none have the navigational
skill of the homing pigeon. We’re not exactly sure why, but homing pigeons have
an innate home detector. And so do you.
What God gave
pigeons, he gave to you. Not bird brains, but a guidance system. You were born
heaven-equipped with a hunger for your heavenly home. Need proof? Consider the questions
we ask. Questions about death and time; significance and relevance. Animals
don't seem to ask those questions. Dogs howl at the moon, but we stare at it. How’d
it get there? How’d we get here? Are we someone's idea, or something's
accident? Why on earth are we on this earth? We ask questions about war. Can't
conflict go the way of eight-track tapes and telegrams? And the grave. Why is
the dash between the dates on a tombstone so small? Something tells us this
isn't right, good or fair. This isn't home.
Where do these questions
come from? Who put these thoughts in our heads? Why can't we, like my dogs, just
be happy with long naps and the occasional dog treat? Because, according to
Jesus, we aren't home yet. And probably his best-known story follows the trail
of a homeless runaway. Jesus doesn't give us his name, just his pedigree: rich.
As in Rockefeller rich. Spoiled rich. Trust-fund baby rich. And rather than
learn his father's business, he disregarded his father's kindness, cashed in
his stock, and drove his Mercedes to
the big city. And as fast as you can say “dead broke,” he was. No friends; no
funds; no clue what to do. He ended up in a pigpen of trouble. He fed hogs,
slept in the mud, and grew so hungry he gave serious thought to licking the
slop. That's when he thought of home.
He remembered
lasagna and laughter at the dining room table. His warm bed, clean pajamas, and
fuzzy slippers. He missed his father's face and longed to hear his voice. He
looked around at the snorting pigs and buzzing flies and made a decision.
"You know, I'll just make this pigpen my home."
So, he took out
a loan from the piggy bank and remodeled the place. New throw rug over the mud.
A La-Z-Boy recliner next to the
trough. He hung a flat screen on the fence post, and tied a ribbon on a sow's
head and called her honey. Quickly enough he'd made a home out of the pigsty
and settled in for the good life. Well, okay, maybe not. But don't we? Don't we
do our best to make this mess a home? Revamp and redecorate. We face-lift this;
overhaul that. And in time, the place isn’t half bad. We actually feel at home.
But then the flies come out. People die, earthquakes rumble, and nations rage.
Families collapse, and children die of hunger. Dictators treat people like,
well, like pigs, and this world stinks. And we have a choice. We can pretend
this life is all God intended, or we can come to our senses. We can follow the
example of the prodigal son “… and go back to my father." (Luke 15:18)
Don't you love
the image of the son setting out for the homestead: rising out of the mud,
turning his back to the pigs, and turning his eyes toward the father? This is
Jesus' invitation to us, too. Set your hearts on your home. "Seek first
the kingdom of God." (Matthew 6:33) In his plan it's all about the King
and his kingdom. "And this is [God's] plan: At the right time he will
bring everything together under the authority of Christ – everything in heaven
and on earth." (Ephesians 1:10) The journey home is nice, but the journey itself
isn’t the goal.
For instance, think
of yourself on an airplane. As you look around at your fellow passengers, they
all look pretty content. Thanks to books, pillows and crossword puzzles, they pass
the time quite nicely. But suppose at 30,000 feet an announcement came over the
loudspeaker, "Ladies and gentlemen, this is your Captain speaking, and I
would like to inform you that this flight is your final destination. We will
never land. Your home is this plane, so enjoy the journey." Passengers
would mutiny. They’d take over the cockpit and seek a landing strip. No one
would settle for such nonsense. The journey is not the destination. The vessel
is not the goal. Our hearts tell us there’s more to this life than this life. Like
E.T., we lift bent fingers to the sky and we may not know where to point, but
we know not to call this airplane our home. "God . . . has planted
eternity in the human heart." (Ecclesiastes 3:11)
Mr. Howie
released his pigeons from Auckland, and God released his children from the cage
of time. Our privilege is to keep flapping until we spot the island. Those who
do will discover a spiritual cache, a treasure hidden in a field, a pearl of
great value. (Matthew 13:44 – 46) Finding the kingdom is like finding a winning
lottery ticket in the sock drawer, or locating the cover to a jigsaw puzzle
box. "Oh, so that’s how it's going to look." In God's narrative, life
on earth is but the beginning: the first letter of the first sentence in the
first chapter of the great story God is writing with your life. Your biggest
moments lie ahead of you, on the other side of the grave. So "seek those
things which are above, where Christ is, sitting at the right hand of God."
(Colossians 3:1)
Scripture uses kind
of a starchy verb there. Zeteite ("to
seek") is to "covet earnestly, strive after, to inquire for, desire,
even require." Seek heaven the way a sailor seeks the coast, or a pilot
seeks the landing strip, or a missile seeks the heat. Head for home the way a
pigeon wings to the nest, or the prodigal walked determinedly to his papa.
"Think only about" it, and "Keep your mind" on it. (vs. 2)
"Set your sights on the realities of heaven," and "Pursue the
things over which Christ presides." (vs. 1) Obsess yourself with heaven. Don't
settle for pigpens on earth.
I said something
similar to my kids many years ago. I had taken them to the San Diego Zoo, a
perfect place for kids to spend a summer Saturday afternoon. By this time a
veteran kid-guide, I knew the path to take. Start small and end wild. We began
with the lowly, glass-caged reptiles. Next we took in the parrots and pink
flamingos. We fed the animals in the petting zoo, and tossed crumbs to the critters
in the pond. But all along I kept telling them, "We're getting closer to
the big animals. Lions and tigers and bears are just around the corner." Oh
my.
Finally we
reached the Africa section. For full effect I told them to enter with their
heads down and their eyes on the sidewalk. I walked them right up to the lion enclosure.
And just when I was about to tell them to lift their eyes, one of the boys made
a discovery. "Look, a roly-poly!" "Where?"
"Here!" He squatted down and placed the pellet-sized insect in the
palm of his sister and began to roll it around. "Let me see it!" his
brother chimed in. I couldn't lure them away. "Hey, guys, this is the
jungle section." No response. "Don't you want to see the wild
animals?" No, they were focused on the bug. There we stood, lions to our
left, tigers to our right, only a stone's throw from the hippos and giraffes,
and what were they doing? Playing with a bug. Don't we all?
Myriads of
mighty angels encircle us, the presence of our Maker engulfs us, the witness of
a thousand galaxies and constellations calls to us, the flowing tide of God's
history carries us, the crowning of Christ as King of the universe awaits us,
but we can't get our eyes off the insects of life: paychecks, gadgets,
vacations, and weekends. Limit your world to the roly-poly bugs of this life,
and you will be disappointed. Limit your story to the days between your birth
and death, and brace yourself for a sad ending. You were made for more than
this life.
Five hundred
years ago, sailors feared the horizon. Sail too far and risk falling off the
edge, they reasoned. Common wisdom of the ancients warned against the unseen.
So did the monument at the Strait of Gibraltar. At its narrowest point,
Spaniards erected a huge marker that bore the three-word Latin slogan Ne plus ultra, or "No more
beyond." But then came Christopher Columbus and the voyage of 1492. The
discovery of the New World changed everything. Spain acknowledged this in its
coins, which came to bear the slogan plus
ultra, or "more beyond."
So, why don't
you chisel the “no” off your future? God has set your heart on home. Keep
flying until you get there.
Grace,
Randy
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