A Glorious Homecoming

The weekend before last I was blessed to be able go away and hole myself up in a hotel room for a couple of days, just the Lord and me. I wasn’t going in search of answers necessarily, but rather to communicate, spirit to Spirit, and be reconnected to the peace that seemed to have been quietly waning.

The Lord spoke to my heart in many ways that weekend, but the one thing I wanted to share, which I hope will be an encourgement to those of you who are enduring difficult trials, is something that the Holy Spirit spoke into my spirit on Sunday morning.

I was reading through all four of the gospels’ accounts of the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. And I repeated a prayer I had uttered many times, and that was that I couldn’t wait to be there with my Lord, in person, in heaven, rejoicing in eternal peace, which will never wane. I pictured our first face-to-face meeting, after all that we’ve been through together in this life. An intimate and emotional reunion to be sure. And as sudden as a lightning bolt, His Spirit spoke to mine and said that He couldn’t wait for me to be there, too.

He hates the sin and the suffering that we must endure in this life. He does not relish in it, and He is not indifferent to our pain. He weeps when we weep. “The Lord is near the broken-hearted; He is the Saviour of those whose spirits are crushed down.” (Psalm 34:18) But there is sin, and there is free will, so suffering and pain in this life are inevitable. But the good news is that if we know Him as our Lord and Savior, He will use the suffering for good – a good that we cannot begin to imagine.

So I came back from my weekend and was given a reminder of just how excited God is to share His home with us, through an audio of a teaching by one of my very favorite Bible teachers, Anne Graham Lotz.  The visual she imparts through her generous teaching made me smile with renewed amazement at the heights to which God loves us, and a brand new sense of sharing with Him in the anticipation of our new lives together.

This link will take you to Anne’s teaching, Choose You This Day, Part 1, as played on the radio program, Focus on the Family. I’ll post Part 2 as soon as they do. Enjoy.


Here's the post for Part 2.