Back "at home" in Fresno

By -
Ah, it's great to be home. All thirteen of my nights on the road were restless. I had good beds to sleep in, comfortable pillows, decent temperatures and long, tiring days. But I still slept poorly. Some of it was perhaps due to adrenaline. My doctoral classes force me to process and prepare material every night. My mind is running at full speed all day, and you know how hard it can be to slow those thoughts down at night. Guess I should have picked up some yoga.

So it's great to be home. Even if it is a temporary home. Our rental house will no longer be ours after June 30. We have to move into our new house sometime between Saturday and Tuesday. We're thrilled that our new house is set to close on Thursday. Carpet will be installed on Saturday. Then we can go, go, go.

So it will be great to finally be at home. After 6 months of transition, we can finally start to put down some roots. The boys can actually invest in neighborhood friends. Julie & I can get to know the neighbors. We can learn the joys of owning a California home.

Where is my real home? Of course, those of us who follow Jesus are never really at home in this life. We put down roots, but we would all do well to remember that those roots are temporary. If our hearts are set on this life only, then we will spend our days collecting the wrong kind of treasure. "But set your sights on things above," we are reminded. Knowing that our home is with Jesus refocuses the activities of our days.

It's great to be home.

Comments

Barbara said…
Well, should be a busy weekend and VBS week, but I know it will be good to be "settled". Sorry I can't be there to help pack and unpack.
June 22, 2009 at 4:44 PM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Love It or List It: We Sold Our Church Building

By -
Image
On October 8, 2023, we held our last worship service in our home of 59 years. We're moving on to a temporary location while we wait for God to reveal where our more permanent home will be. It's been a journey for which there is no solid road map, but we feel blessed by what's happening. We formed a giant circle for the final song at our longtime, northeast Fresno home. In late January, our elders announced a shock decision. We would be selling our church building and moving on. Among the elders, it was an uncontentious and unambiguous decision. They 100% believed it was in the church's best interest to put our property on the market and find a new home. Many congregations have hard choices to make about aging properties that are oversized for today's churches. Selling seemed the most desirable option to our board in our circumstances. I wrote about that decision back in January. You can read about it here . I had an inside seat to their decision-making process. As a
Read more

Galatians 4:1-7 & The Confusing Apostle Paul

By -
Image
Does Galatians 4:1-7 confuse anyone as much as it does me? After studying this for some time, I am prone to agree with the words of 2 Peter 3:16. "There are some things in [Paul's letters] hard to understand, which the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction, as they do the other scriptures." I hope I'm not one of the ignorant and unstable people. But I'm in the camp of folks who can say that Paul's writings are occasionally hard to understand. Let me clarify what I'm having a hard time clarifying. I don't really think it's difficult to understand Paul's point in Gal 4:1-7. The broader context makes it clear. Paul says that the Law of Moses is inferior to the promise previously made to Abraham. Gentile Christians, he writes, are descendants of Abraham because they share the same faith in God (3:6-7) that Abraham had (Gen 15:6). They therefore don't need to obey Jewish rules and customs. That's his point. from Anthony
Read more

Still Freezing in Abilene

By -
Image
So I've been in a class all week titled "Missional Ecclesiology." It's taken me most of the week just to figure out what the title even means, but it's been a thoroughly invigorating week. Basically, the class is about how church can become a people who are more fully dedicated to the Kingdom of God. Of course this brings up all kinds of questions. If we are going to reshape our churches to more accurately resemble a pursuit of God designs for creation and humanity, what exactly is his aim? Is he merely interested in us going to heaven? Is that what salvation means? And how do we live our communal life in a way that nurtures this vision of salvation? These are deep questions and not so easily dismissed. For example, when I grew up in church, the primary concern was to be saved from sin and not go to hell. So how did we answer this concern? By baptizing people in the right way for the right reason so that they could have assurance of going to heaven. But as we look
Read more