NO WAY HOME

I remember once when I was about ten years old my family went to this new amusement park located at the beach. It was one of those special times filled with the usual childhood anticipations of one entire day, which would be consumed with nothing, but having fun.

The moment was marred for me at one point when I ended up getting separated from my family. That incredible sense of being stranded and overwhelmed with a feeling of panic turned the amusement park from a paradise into place of trauma.

I experienced what felt like an eternity between the time I was separated from my family and when they finally found me. And the entire time the uncertainty burned in my chest with a unreasonable fear that I would be lost forever. Not being able to remember where our car was parked only fueled my anxiety.

Despite the fact that the moment was only temporary for me the rest of the day was tainted by that memory. I did my best to try and find the magic in the park after that event, but it just was never the same.

In life there are times when we are forced to leave some place that we think of in one way or another as home. Sometimes this is by choice, others the result of some crisis.

And there are times when God allows these kinds of crisis because he knows that place of emotional residence that we use as a comfort zone is really keeping us from some change that would be in our best interest. I can speak for others, but I know that in my life I have always had a tendency to be a “squatter” when I came to some landscape of existence that I thought was comfortable and good enough.

When I did, I often would ignore the little hints from God that it was time for a change. So since I didn’t respond willingly or the way he knew was best for me he would send some crisis into my life that would make sure I couldn’t find a way back to that “emotional” home. It took awhile in some cases before the light of his purpose would finally shine, but eventually I would discover how not being able to find my way back to that home was really for the best.

Perhaps as a reader you are in such a transition yourself. Satan will naturally try to convince you that you are being punished, which is why the change is taking place. And if that change involves something like a loss of a job, it would be hard to see how being unemployed is a good thing. My wife and I felt that way several years ago when she was laid off at a job she had held for nearly eight years.

However the Lord has a far better one in mind and now we can look back with appreciation of the way our life is so much better with her at her current position. It just didn’t admittedly seem like it at the moment.

So dear reader, take heart and listen. Perhaps in that moment, which seems so full of despair and you are wondering if you’ll ever find your way home, you to will discover that God is using the moment to bring you instead to some place better.