Heading for Home

Have you ever felt yourself wishing you were somewhere else? I don’t just mean wishing to trade work for the beach or sitting in traffic for a seat on the couch. I mean a heartfelt longing for a different place.

I’ve arrived back in Cambodia after nearly five months in the US, and it’s a bit strange. Cambodia, and life here, is quite familiar after all this time, despite how long I’ve been away. However, I’m more homesick on this re-entry than I’ve been after other, shorter visits to America. Perhaps it’s because I spent a lot of time with family, or fell into a comfortable routine. Whatever the cause, though I’m very happy to be back, I still want to be somewhere else at the same time.

I think it’s within each of us to want something different, usually something better. We’re waiting, hoping, maybe even working toward some situation that we deeply desire. For me, right now, it’s somehow uniting the purpose I feel for my work in Cambodia with the comfort and security of ‘home’. For others, it might mean a better job, marriage, achieving social justice in a fallen world. There are lots of possibilities, and they’re unique to each of us. At the core, though, it’s a divine longing, isn’t it? We want to be away from the frustration, the discomfort, the pain of this life and to be somewhere infinitely better. We’re all homesick travelers on our journey with the Lord. We’re heading for the joy of heaven, we desire face-time with our Father.

It’s one of the blessings of our Christian faith that we can acknowledge these feelings of homesickness, of longing for somewhere else. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that after applauding some very faithful people, the writer of Hebrews says “Instead, they were longing for a better country—a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them” (Hebrews 11: 16). Today, I’m taking comfort in the fact that no matter where my feet are planted, Christ has understood my longings for somewhere else and prepared a heavenly home for me.