Time to Come Home.

Time to Come Home.

While I was in the doctor’s office and unable to take a call, I saw her name come up on my phone.  Several years had passed since I had heard from her or seen her at Women of Passion; but hearing her voice, time just fell away as it has a wont to do with those we love.  My girl was hurting, so troubled, and needed comfort, counsel and prayer.

We met the next day to be together, and to talk further.

Life has been busy, and well, events have gotten in the way of a lot, especially the things that kept her close to God.  How had it happened anyway?  How did her little family go from being in church together every Sunday, to not going at all?  ‘And weekly Bible study?  Well, of course, that had to go because she had started a new business!  Foregoing her Bible study group, which met on a weekday, was a logical forfeiture for a new business owner.  Oh, it is so easy to see how it happened, is it not?

But when life took a serious downturn, she needed her God connection!  In the ensuing days, the thought has run through my mind repeatedly . . . sooner or later, we all want to go home.

I can remember going home.  Hmm… just the other day marked eight years since my mother left me to go and be with Jesus; my dad was nine years before that.  But here’s the thing, after many years, I still remember the feeling of going home.  We lived in a big old Colonial Revival home (built around 1900) in Alameda, California.  As an adult, I would pull my car down the long narrow driveway, and then walk up the back stairs, and open the kitchen door.  I didn’t knock, or wait for the door to be opened from the other side; I belonged and I was wanted there—I was home and I knew it.

So to my friend who called when I was at the doctor, I would like to say, ‘’it doesn’t matter how long…

   It doesn’t matter where you have been or why…

     It is time to come home.

       You belong here,

          and there is a place at the table for you.’

Friend, you see that is the heart of God for you, it is the heart of God for me.  For you, for me, he has brought us to his banqueting table, and his banner over us is LOVE. [Song of Solomon 2.4]  And I think of the parable our Lord told, recorded in Luke chapter 15.  The dad, the one whose son had demanded his due and had left to strike out on his own, only to fail - the dad watched the horizon and at first glimpse of his son, ran to embrace him and welcome him home.  ‘Welcome, Child … oh, welcome home!’

You see, we serve a God who always invites us, always welcomes us and embraces us. 

Do you remember the neighborhood game we played ‘Hide and Seek’?  If it suddenly got too dark or we were just sick of looking for a really good ‘hider’, we would go to the base, put our face down, and yell, ‘Olly, Olly, Oxen Free!!’  And when the hiders knew it was sincere, one by one, kids would come out of their hiding places.

So here is what I would like to say:

  Olly, Olly, Oxen Free!!  Come out of wherever you are hiding, for whatever reason you have been detained, and come home!

‘Been gone from your Bible for a long time?  Open it up again.

‘Been away from church?  Come on back.

‘Been out of your Bible study community?  We open our arms,

  we will hug you, we will hold you, just come on back, come home.

It was the message of Jesus:  Come, I will give you rest.  [Matthew 11.28-29]  Turn around.  Our God is ready to receive you.  Turn around, and from your Christian community or Bible study group, hear this: olly, olly, oxen free – Ya’all come back now, we have been missing you desperately!