Coming Home by Stephen Bly & Podcast

What’s So Good About Coming Home?

Coming home touched the viewers of the Stephen Spielberg movie, E. T., years ago. No matter how much love and attention the child actors gave to that extraterrestrial being, he still lacked something. The classic line, “E. T. phone home,” brought more than one tear. We’ve all felt homesickness at some time. We know what it’s like to want to get home.

Maybe that’s why an obscure verse in a seldom read part of the Old Testament stands out to me.

“At that time I will gather you; at that time I will bring you home” (Zephaniah 3:20).

God Calls People Home

Our heavenly Father summons us to a place where we belong. We’re often restless in this world. Something seems off. The more serious we become spiritually, the more we realize earth is not a perfect place. We’re really longing for the Garden of Eden. It does get better than this. Like E. T., we want home.

Heaven is Jesus’ home. Even though we aren’t there yet, He dwells with us here by the Holy Spirit. Do we make Him feel at home with us? That’s part of our motivation for holiness. Home is where you like being, where you’re comfortable, and keep coming back. Meanwhile, He’s preparing a custom-made eternal place for those who believe in Him. Someday we’re going to say, “Hey, I feel like I’ve been here before. I like this place. It feels so much like home.”

So Many Houses

In our many years of marriage, Janet and I moved into more than twenty dwellings. I remember the first one. They painted that apartment turquoise on Church Street in Visalia, California. It’s now a freeway. A duplex, where our first son, Russell, was born, sat about fifteen feet from a railroad track. The train roared through every night about midnight. All the walls shook.

One rental house had very thin walls. Russ at 4-years-old lost a ball behind the couch. He crawled back there and poked his hand through the wall. In another rental in the country out in the boonies, Russ and brother, Mike, wandered off. They got lost after a long hike. We finally brought them back after a scary search.

We lived in big cities too, like San Marino, California. After we signed rental papers on a house there, we discovered the landlady actually lived in the garage. She claimed at first that she stayed with her daughter in another town. And since the garage had no restroom facility, she wandered through the back door whenever she needed to.

And Even More

We got a rent-free house once next door to a church I served as Youth Director while going to seminary. This had been converted from an illegal abortion clinic. It had a special doorbell that only rang in the back room.

Over the years, we lived in small places and large ones with big landscaped yards, three-car garages, and even a swimming pool. Some new, others old. But only one felt like coming home from the first moment. That’s the one in Winchester, Idaho. From the day we moved there in 1981, it felt right. We relaxed. It was comfy and we felt free to be ourselves. That little verse in Zephaniah came to mind.

Jesus explained in parables God’s love for individual people. He compared Himself to a shepherd searching for a single lost sheep. And a loving father waiting for a prodigal son. In both cases, He wanted them to return home. We were created to be with Him. So, He keeps calling to us. The Christian life is all about going home.

Stephen Bly

Copyright©1996

Image by Sven Anacker from Pixabay

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“Coming Home” complete audio podcast by award-winning western author Stephen Bly. Sponsored by BlyBooks.com Legacy Series.

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The Bly House at Broken Arrow Crossing now owned by Winchester Lake Lodge as and AirB&B rental for families and groups – THE BLY HOUSE

Property Overview – BROKEN ARROW CROSSING