It’s Thursday evening and I just pulled into the garage back in Carmel. I’ve been gone three days and each time I head out, I already am thinking about returning home. I have driven close to 1000 miles in the last three days and have been in Illinois, Missouri and then back again in Indiana. I’m only here for several days and then I’m off to Knoxville so I will add Kentucky and Tennessee to my list for the month. Tuesday I head to Williamsburg so I will add North Carolina and Virginia to the total as well. Then, I should have some time back in Carmel without a whole lot of travel.
Several years ago, I travelled something like 85-100 days a year on business (plus all the personal stuff), but more recently, I have limited my travel to a maximum of several days every other month or so and have been pretty successful adding clients who are located locally and don’t require any trips outside the state. But please don’t get me wrong – I do enjoy the periodic journey to visit a client as long as it is just for a night or two. I think I get a little bored if I don’t have a little distraction every now and then.
But I love coming home. In fact, when the work is over and I get on the plane or in the car, my heart beats a little faster and I look forward to seeing Janet. We both feel the same way about each other. Each trip we speak several times a day – and always before bed and again first thing in the morning. I really like it when Janet travels with me, but the fact of the matter is that she has a life here and she is so busy that it really disrupts her routine when she hits the road for my business trips.
Right now, Janet has asked me about cutting down my travel schedule even further. It just changes the rhythms of our lives too much and there is enough work locally to keep me busy. More and more, I am asking people to travel here rather than getting on jets every other week or so to travel around the country. I don’t know how I will like this change in my business – to be honest, I am a little skeptical. It’s tough for me to sit still without a little change in scenery every once in a while – and travel for overnight trips isn’t all that bad – in fact, I kind of like it… as long as I can look forward to coming home.
Speaking of coming home, Christ wants us to think about His home, and our ultimate home as well – heaven. The Scripture is quite clear that while we might be in this world, those who believe in Jesus are not of this world. The original language of the New Testament, Greek, helps us to understand that Jesus is from heaven. His journey to earth to become fully human, while remaining fully God, started in heaven and then he spent somewhere in the vicinity of 33 years exposing people to the Kingdom of Heaven. After the resurrection, Jesus ascended to the Father and announced that another would take His place. The Holy Spirit, know by a variety of names, descended on the assembled ekklesia (called out assembly) at Pentecost and most theologians would agree that this event constituted the beginning of the church of Christ. This was first foretold in the 16th chapter of Matthew.
We are also told that Jesus will go ahead of us to prepare a place in His Father’s home for us – in anticipation of our arrival there. The verse for this evening is from John 14:2, “In my Father’s house are many rooms; if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you.” My encouragement tonight is that Jesus gets excited about your arrival at His home – eventually, of course. We are promised that He will petition the Father on our behalf and that you will be treated as one of His adopted sons or daughters. My prayer is that you will look forward to the trip home – even more so than I did this afternoon as I was driving through the farmland and small towns in southern Indiana, enjoying God’s creation. Have a great year in the Lord, grace and peace…