Home is were the heart is at...or is it?

Some say home is where the heart is at.  Well if that is true then where exactly is my home?  My heart is in several places such as: Wisconsin, Haiti, with my friends spread across the world, with my family, with my cat, with my guitar…you get the point.  My heart is pretty widely spread across this world.  So how can I really say where my home is? Well in the song This World Is Not My Home it says, “This world is not home, I’m just passing through…” That comes from the scripture in 1Peter that refers to us as being sojourners of this land.  So, going along those same lines, when I think of where my home really is in terms of my heart, I come to the conclusion that my home is not where my heart is but where God’s heart is.

This thought was sparked within me as I just returned (to Haiti) from a visit with my family and friends in Wisconsin…where one of my homes is. :)  While there (I cannot lie) I had thoughts of, “I kind of want to stay home.  I miss my family and friends.  I miss understanding everyone all the time.  I miss the comforts that America has.  Living in Haiti is hard.  I’m going back to a lot of responsibilities... “The list goes on.  However, shortly after landing in Haiti I knew that this is where my earthly home is (for now).

 I know this because God’s heart is with the orphaned and widowed as referred to in James 1…and consequently my heart is with them too.  God has birthed within me the desire to give my life to serve these little parentless kids.  Psalm37:4 says, “Delight yourself in the Lord, and He will give you the desires of your heart.”  Well I’m here to declare that God’s promise here in Psalms is so true.  However, when we delight ourselves continually in the Lord, our desires don’t always stay the same.  So the desire of being  a millionaire so we can buy all kinds of things to satisfy our flesh may change into wanting money not to fulfill our lusts but to bless others.  Or the desire to be somebody because you enjoy being the center of attention may change into wanting attention so that you can make Jesus the front of all and the center of everything.   Whatever it is that you think you want, I’m here to testify that once you make Jesus your joy and delight in Him that the things you want change.  The thing I want right now (because God download this within my heart) is to serve the fatherless.  I’ve been doing that ever since I got to Haiti however I just started (when I returned on August 12^th) a new role as being a fulltime caretaker to a little boy and a little girl.   When I say fulltime caretaker I mean that they live with me and I feed, bathe, clothe, play with, teach, correct, and the rest of the things that go along with the whole parenting gig.  Yep that’s right, Shane has become a father :)  These children have been part of our crèche for a couple years now and recently our leadership decided to put them in more of a one-on-one (or in my case one-on-two) care.   Now if you had asked me six months ago when I was coming to Haiti if I thought I would have been a foster dad, I would have said nope.  But God’s plan and desires have a way of directing us (me) to do that which He wants and that which His heart is yearning for.  His heart longs for the fatherless to have a father and while these children are in the adoption process I get the honor of being a father to them.

So my parting thoughts are this: be open to letting God download His heart within you.  Until you do that, you may not know where you want to go or what your purpose in life is.  God always has a plan and always knows what He is doing.  Let his heart become your heart and you won’t be lost for a home, for a purpose, or for that matter, anything in life.