A favorite game throughout my life has been some form of tag or hide-and-seek. In this style of game there is a “home-base” where a person cannot be tagged or frozen. It can also be the goal for proving your ability to hide well and move from place to place without being caught by the person who is “it.” The home base can serve as the place of safety or as the marker for a completed trip.
In my traveling life, it is good to come home for a season. It is the place where I can find rest, reconnection, and recreation with my family. It is a place where I can wash my clothes, sleep in my own bed, and cook my own meals. It is a place where I can go on a bike ride or play softball in the yard. It is the place where I can sit on the back deck to have wonderful conversations, or I can watch a movie or show on my couch with my wife beside me.
In life it is good to find the place where life becomes normal once again. When we have been “on the road” or have been away from home each night for meetings and other responsibilities, it is good to stop for a moment to reconnect and to collect our thoughts. It is good to be home where we can find comfort amid discomfort; hope amid despair; and rest amid our tiredness.
In the post-Pentecost Church, we see the home becoming a place of worship, community, fellowship, and love. In Acts 2:46 we read, “Day by day, as they spent much time together in the temple, they broke bread at home and ate their food with glad and generous hearts.” Home became a place for the new believers to enter rest, recreation, reconnection, and renewal. The time spent around the table and with one another, became a foundational piece for the growing church, as new people became members of the community.
Our home base may be the place we call home, or it may be the friendships and relationships where we find community and freedom to be real and raw, if necessary. The home base becomes the place where we feel safe against the ongoing battles in the world around us.
Where do you feel like you are in a game of tag? Where is your home base where you can find community, encouragement, rest, and support during the craziness of life? At this home base, consider taking time to focus upon the community of people (family and friends) who inhabit “home base” to receive and give encouragement, rest, and support from the “games” of life.
Prayer: Lord, when life is crazy and I am away from my home base, I discover anew my need for community and a home base where I can be real and raw. Thank you for my family and friends who serve as my home base. Remind me of their importance in my life when I neglect to make time to be at home base. Thank you for modeling for us the importance of community and coming away from the busyness of life for community. In Jesus’ name. Amen.