Home is Where the Water Doesn't Taste Funny

 As I wrote our devotional on the last few chapters of Hebrews this week, I was reminded of a short reflection I wrote on how this world isn't my home in college. I've posted it below in its original form:

I have moved many, many times. The last time I counted, I think I was at 13 moves, but the number is probably a bit higher now. Although many of these moves were in the same few areas, but I still had to become quite accustom to not staying in any place too long.

Since I started college, I've often been asked where I am from by my teachers and classmates. My response is usually either "from everywhere" or "from Lafayette, right now." Regardless of where I'm living at the moment, I feel at home in a lot of places. 

 My parents' house in Lafayette is my actual legal home, but I spend of most of the semester in my dorm at New Orleans seminary. And I may feel even more at home at my grandmother's house in Indiana, since I've spent so much time there and her location, unlike mine, has been consistent for my entire life.

  But really, to me, home is really just anywhere where the water doesn't taste funny. If you've travelled a fair bit, you've probably been to a lot of places where the tap water doesn't taste just right, or where you never feel like you can get all the soap off your body in the shower. Water is such a vital part of everyday life, yet so many places we go, the water feels foreign to us. 

 As a good Christian writer should, whenever I get sentimental about my earthly life, I try to ground myself in the Bible pretty quick. When I think about moving and funny-tasting water, one passage I'm reminded of is John 4.

In this passage, Jesus spoke to a woman who was drawing water from an old well that was important in Jewish tradition. Jesus told her that "Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life."

A related passage is Matthew 28:16-20. This passage is known as the Great Commission and ends the book of Matthew with Jesus telling his followers to share the gospel with the world. The last thing Jesus said in this passage was "behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age." For all of God's people, Jesus is our living water, our continually refreshing a spiritual drink, and he's promised to be with us both now and for eternity!

I'm also reminded of Hebrews 11 when I consider my many moves. This chapter describes the faithfulness of several notable biblical characters, and after giving an expansive list, the author said of them: "Some were tortured, refusing to accept release, so that they might rise again to a better life. Others suffered mocking and flogging, and even chains and imprisonment. They were stoned, they were sawn in two, they were killed with the sword. They went about in skins of sheep and goats, destitute, afflicted, mistreated - of whom the world was not worthy - wandering about in deserts and mountains, and in dens and caves of the earth."

These men and women had no true home. Instead, they walked by faith and because of their faith, we're told that the world was not worthy of them. Every time I read this verse tears come to my eyes! They knew this world was not their home, and it could never have been their home!

As much as I like the tap water in Lafayette and Henryville, neither place has any eternal worth. Instead, I must find strength and nourishment from Christ and realize that my true home is with him. I hope we can all consider what we think home truly is to us. And I hope your home isn't part of some city of man, but instead in the city of God.

All Scripture cited from the ESV.