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By Roger Applewhite

“We are foreigners and strangers in your sight, as were all our ancestors.”

1 Chronicles 29:15

It’s the center of many of my thoughts during the holidays. Images of my house growing up. Christmas card snapshots of Katie and the kids. My new home at Coastline. It’s good, I think, to sit with these things. They reinforce me, anchor me, define me.

But Jesus decided to leave His home. To travel far from it, in fact. Far from His communion with the Father, beyond any passage of time or line on a map, He traveled a great distance. To a cradle here on earth, a new home He made with us. Even so, a home filled with strangers, as we didn’t want Him.

I can’t fathom this. A love so great that man did not see it, the Bible says, so my heart struggles to believe it. Why would He leave His home for me? I can’t say I’d have done the same.

But I think the answer is simple. It is because our Lord knows his children aren’t really home yet:
“We are foreigners and strangers in your sight, as were all our ancestors” (1 Chronicles 29:15).
These things I call home, the good treasures of this life, aren’t really where I belong. I, too, am traveling. A half-recognized pilgrimage back to a room prepared for me by Christ, my brother and friend.
“Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and strangers, but fellow citizens with God’s people and also members of his household, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone. In him the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord. And in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit” (Ephesians 2:19-22).
So, when we happily reminisce during this season of the good blessings of home here and now, let’s also remember our true home in the One who journeyed far from His to find us, and save us.

Reflective Question for the Day

What are the here and now blessings you think about during the holiday season? 
How can you remind yourself of your true home with Jesus?

Roger Applewhite likes simple things. Late afternoons, Christmas jazz, walking the bluffs with his wife, Katie. He knows the Lord is in all these things, but doesn’t always notice. But He reminds Roger daily, and for that, and so much more, Roger is thankful.