Skip to content ↓

On Coming Home

On Coming Home

A few days ago the Prime Minister of Canada held a televised press conference to speak to Canadian citizens traveling overseas. He looked directly into the camera as if to make eye contact with each of them and said earnestly, “It’s time to come home.” On any given day hundreds of thousands of Canadians are traveling outside the bounds of their own country and he had a crucial message for them—come back to Canada now, before it’s too late. For your own good, come home.

In the past week we’ve heard story after story of people who are coming home, or attempting to come home, or longing to come home. Passengers on cruise ships have been desperate to disembark and return to their homes. Travelers have flooded foreign airports after being told they need to return while they still can. I’ve been talking to friends and praying for friends as they attempt to get out, as they navigate closing networks of travel, as they make their desperate attempts to get where they want to be. An acquaintance posted this simple but meaningful update on Facebook: “HOME.” That said it all.

When uncertainty threatens, we long for the safety, the security, and the familiarity of home.

When danger comes, we long for home. When uncertainty threatens, we long for the safety, the security, and the familiarity of home. No place is better, no place is more comforting, no place offers such joy. We may travel for business or pleasure, we may go afar to visit family or see the sites, but there is always a part of us we leave behind, always a part of us that feels incomplete until we have returned to our home. When this outbreak occurred, there was a sense of desperation to have our children return from college, our spouses to return from their travels, our families to be together, in the same place, under the same roof—the best place, the best roof.

All this talk of home, and all this desire to be home, and all this mad scramble to get home, has been forcing me to think about the fact that this world is not my home. Even this home, which I so love, is not my home. In fact, the message of Christianity is a message meant to call people to a new home, a better home, a real home.

This rush of travelers and wanderers reminds me that I myself am a sojourner and exile (1 Peter 2:11). The longing to return to this country, stirs in my soul a longing for a better country (Hebrews 11:16). The Prime Minister’s plea to citizens of Canada reminds me I’m first a citizen of heaven (Philippians 3:20). As much as I desire to be here, I ultimately desire to be there. As satisfied as I am to be here, I know I’ll never be fully satisfied until I’m there.


  • Bad Guys

    Could I Be One of the Bad Guys?

    Here is something I have been considering over the past few days: Every one of us acknowledges there is a lamentable lack of unity among Christians today. Yet none of us seems to consider that we ourselves may be the cause of that disunity, or at least contribute to it. In our minds, it is…

  • A La Carte Friday 2

    A La Carte (October 25)

    A La Carte: Does your church need to repent for the nursery? / Why we won’t spend eternity in heaven / Volunteer mums / When Christians are mocked in popular culture / What productivity can and cannot do / and more.

  • A La Carte Thursday 1

    A La Carte (October 24)

    A La Carte: Barnabas Piper’s gratitude for his dad / When eyewitnesses disagree / How endorsements work / God’s gift of musical memory / Receiving critique / Book and Kindle deals.

  • Moving House and Moving Church

    Would It Be Better to Take a Pay Cut Than a Church Cut?

    There are times when circumstances dictate that we move—that we move from one town to another, one province or state to another, or even one country or continent to another. There are other times when it is desire more than circumstance that causes us to uproot ourselves from one location and re-root ourselves in another.

  • A La Carte Collection cover image

    A La Carte (October 23)

    A La Carte: How to write a meaningful card / God brings us bad to give us best / New notebook, same mission / There but for the grace of God go I / The trouble with competitiveness / and more.

  • A La Carte Collection cover image

    A La Carte (October 22)

    A La Carte: John Piper on future judgment / Is every sin the same in God’s eyes? / The long defeat of history / Common marketplace leadership sayings / Infertility and grief / Kindle deals / and more.