Homesick For A Home Not Yet Reached

Last week, I was reading through the journal I kept from my trip to South East Asia, and one of the pages all I had written was this:

Out past the mangrove trees, where eternity is real.

At the place I was staying, there was a beach covered in mangrove trees. One afternoon, while it was low tide, I waded out just past the furthest tree. Out there, all I could see was the ocean and the sky. No islands in the distance, no clouds in the sky, no boats on the horizon. Back on shore, I could hear the laughs of friends enjoying a care-free afternoon. I could hear the cry of mosques for the local people to come and pray. I could hear a boat, chuging along, ladden with fish.
Out there, eternity was real. The unending eternal blue. And I was part of that. A speck in what was an eternity.

And yet, my percieved eternity, in all it’s vastness, was but a speck. A speck in the grander scheme of the world. Even still, this world that we all live on is but a speck in the eternity of the universe.
I was a speck in a speck on a speck in the eternity of the universe.

As I stood there, overwhelmed by the grandeur of it all, I had but one thought:
I want to go home.

Fastforward 9 months. I am sitting in a cafe with a friend who’s dad is terminal with cancer. As we chat over coffee, she says one thing that sticks out:
My dad longs for home.

9 months apart, seperated by time and space, context and culture, we both long for the same thing: a home we have never been to. We are homesick for an eternity not yet known.
We both long for the same place. We both long for, thirst for heaven. Heaven where all things are restored to the way they were created to be. No more distractions calling us back to shore. No more cancer. No more suffering. No more pain and hurt and frustration.
In heaven, we shall dwell in the presence of the holy God, and our response shall be praise.

For Paul, as he reaches the end of his earthly life, he writes to Timothy about the hope he has in heaven waiting for him. Paul writes:
For I am already being poured out as a drink offering, and the time of my departure has come. I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Henceforth there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will award me on that Day, and not only to me but also to all who have loved his appearing.

The hope Paul has is my hope. It is the hope of my friend and her dad. It is the hope of all who have loved the appearing of Christ.

Is it your hope?