Coming Home

By Sam Bowman

Today I am in Logan, West Virginia for Freedom Festival. I stepped out of my hotel this morning and looked at the beautiful hills right across the way and thought, “I am home.”

Usually if you ask a person where their home is they’ll give you the name of a town, or an address where they live. But this morning I looked at the lush trees on that hill and thought, “I am home. Planet earth is my home. This hill is mine. It’s where God has put me. It’s where I belong.” And I felt at home.

Home is usually where you are most familiar with your surroundings. It’s where you are most comfortable, feel most secure, can really, totally feel relaxed. For me, home is wherever Debbie is, where Anthony and Zoey are. Home is where there are people who love you and will take care of you if things go wrong. It’s where you know your neighbors, where you know where to go for a great cup of coffee. It’s where you can walk into a store and get a warm welcome and a big smile from an old friend. It’s where you can look around you and everything you see says this is me, it’s who I am. 

I have come to realize that going into a town and praying for it has the odd side effect that it begins to make the place feel like home. It’s why I always pray over my motel room. It seems that when I pray for a place it begins to feel like I belong there.

I have come to realize that praying is all about taking possession. Praying over a place is all about returning that place to it’s rightful Owner. Praying is all about coming home. It’s all about coming into the presence of Daddy, and being where He is, and that is everywhere. He makes anywhere feel like home. Home is in your house, in your marriage, around your block, in your neighborhood, in your city, with your family, and yes, even in the hospital, at the police station, at the repair shop and even in the funeral parlor.

At any moment, anywhere you are, you can come home. Like the prodigal’s father, no matter where you have been, no matter how long you have been there, Daddy is always waiting for you, with open arms, welcoming you home. 

Home is not just a place, it’s also a time. We reminisce because the times and events of our lives also define our sense of being where we belong, of being home. We remember the snow storm of fifty two, when the lights went out for two weeks, when the factory burned down, when grandpa would sit in the kitchen and rock in the chair and tell us stories. A good “Remember when?” is as good as any home, even if the place is only tucked somewhere in the back corner of your memory.

So you can come home to Daddy and sit in the chair with Him and he’ll make you feel totally at home, anytime, anywhere, for home is truly in His arms,  no matter where or when you are.

Three Ways To Come Home Again

1 – Slow down. Find a quite place. Spend time quietly sitting with Daddy.  Put your mind on Him. Read Psalms 23. Take the time to let your sense of home settle in around you and then take that awareness of home everywhere you go and give it to everyone you meet.

2 – Put your finger on that traumatic event in your past that made you think God was not with you or did not love you and ask Him to show you where He was, and watch with the eye of your mind and see what He does or says. Let Him heal you and then see, once again, that Daddy is a safe haven.

3 – Speak to your house, to your marriage, to your city, to all your favorite, loved places and people. Pray over them saying, “City, you are my home. I am here because God has put me here and one reason He has put me here is to say to you, ‘You are loved and you are His. You belong to Him.’”

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                               Welcome home,  Sam