Not Home Yet

Steve and I are far from home and looking forward with great anticipation to being home at Christmastime!  Today I was reflecting on the parallels between the attempts that I've made even here in our hotel to make ourselves feel more at home (even though this room is clearly a counterfeit "home") with the attempts that we (mankind) make to make ourselves feel more at home here on earth.  The truth is, however, that this world is not our home no matter how hard we pursue the comforts of this world to help us feel more like it is.  I was reminded of a quote from this blog post that spoke on the anticipation of the advent season and why we fail to anticipate Christ's return as we should:

"To borrow a thought from John Piper, the weakness of our anticipation for Christ’s return is not because it is uneventful or unimportant. It’s because we keep ourselves stuffed with smaller anticipations. As C.S. Lewis said, 'We are far too easily pleased.'"

Today we were reminded again of the fact that we are not home when we found out that the youth pastor at Cornerstone, Patrick, has been diagnosed with Lou Gehrig's disease.  It breaks our heart to know the loss his family will go through and we mourn with them; but we do not mourn as those who have no hope (1 Thes 4:13-18).  For we know the hope that Patrick has in Jesus Christ and we rejoice that he will meet Jesus face to face.  But we are still very saddened and reminded by this that, again, we are not home yet.   Our prayers are with Patrick and his family and friends.  We pray for their strength, hope, and peace to be in Christ and that He would be glorified in this sad situation.  And we look forward all the more to Christ's return!