Courage to Make it Home

"Lord, give me the stones to ask the hard questions."

A friend of mine told me this prayer a few weeks ago. We were talking about the difficult situations, when you've been burned by someone you trusted, or when you witness a friend in the midst of something you both know isn't right. What do you do? There's really only two things: ignore it, or ask the hard questions.

Neither seem very appealing, to be honest. Confronting someone is a dangerous place. You're risking your relationship with them. They will either hear you out as a friend and trust that you have their best interests in mind, or they'll feel insulted and want you as far from them as possible. That's when you take a good look at the friendship and say, "What does this person mean to me?" Because, and God will always prompt you on this, if the person means a lot to you, you most likely will confront them. The less you think of them, the better chance you'll just ignore the whole situation.

That seems a little backwards but it isn't. If some guy on the street snubbed me, I'd just brush it off. But if a good friend stabbed me in the back I would want to know exactly what the hell they were thinking.

Can you let a friend stay in that mire of guilt or sin? Boy, it just kills me. And so, God took me a step further in faith and taught me another lesson. One I would have preferred to skip.

Another thought has been going through my mind, and it sort of has something to do with this. I've heard several times over the past few months the idea of a home I've never seen.

Created for a place I've never known...

I... love this. How incredible to think that this harsh world is not my home? To think that somewhere is a place so indescribable, and I'm a prince there. Its my home, my true home. I was created for it all along. And this world we live in is so beautiful and full of a grandeur... but my home is more than it. It is the potential of what this world never realized. Doesn't that just blow you away?

It made me wonder about why this world is so difficult... why Christians are put through so much to finally get home. And what I realized is... comforting. Beautiful. God wanted us to be our absolute best when we finally got home. Think about it, a rich kid who grows up rich doesn't think he is. But a poor kid who struggles through life, when he is invited to live in a mansion...

It's magical to him. He's in awe of it all. He's grateful. He appreciates just how great it is, because he knows what it was like without it. That's us, I think. God puts us on this earth, guiding us through trial after trial, growing us, strengthening us, refining us into a being that is humble, sincere, bold, loving and confident. Something we could never be if Heaven was given to us first. And then when we finally pass through the gates and see the first glints of light from the golden roads, and hear the first brush of wings... we will be grateful. We will be in awe. And we will forever appreciate God and his home for us, because we remember what it was like without.



Walking, stumbling... on these shadowfeet
toward home, a land that I've never seen...
I am changing, less and less asleep
made of different stuff than when I began.

And I have sensed it all along...
Fast approaching is the day...