Come Home
February 20, 2023
Photo by Catherine Kay Greenup on Unsplash
“And thou shalt write them upon the posts of thy house, and on thy gates.” – Deuteronomy 6:9
“Come to the church by the wildwood
Oh, come to the church in the vale
No spot is so dear to my childhood
As the little brown church in the vale”– Dr. William S. Pitts (1857)
There is something in our past to which we ought to return. It is not for the sake of empty nostalgia or sentimental musing, but for realignment that we need to come to such a place.
Some years ago, I reopened the doors of an abandoned church. On the walls and doorposts were reminders of days gone by when, in that place, the Word of God was proclaimed. Children were taught to memorize scripture there. The love of God had been impressed upon their hearts. Men and women had met Christ and had their lives changed in that very place.
It is in homes and home churches that such altars once stood and, at every turn, the Word was reinforced and reaffirmed.
We must return from time to time to that place in the geography of the land or that of our hearts where we revisit the ancient stones and remember what we ought to have never forgotten.
Twice, when tempted, Jesus quoted from this very chapter to stand against the wiles of the devil. His earthly parents had written the law upon the posts and the gates of their home, and he had learned his Father’s Word well.
Tradition is about remembering the living, present activity of things that happened in the past.
It is about keeping the faith alive that brought us through the dark times and into the light..
May we do the same for our children and may we return to do the same for the child within us.
They day will come when we will need them to remind us and lead us from slavery to freedom or from the wilderness to the Promised Land
Come home to faith and may your faith take you wherever you must go until you come to rest where you will truly be at rest forever.
Come home to God.
Come Home!