Not Home

Last Friday my wife and I went up to Michigan for the day. It was the first out of state trip we've taken since our honeymoon. We got up at 3:30am and drove five hours to Frankenmuth, MI, the home of Bronner's Christmas Wonderland, the world's largest Christmas store.

As we drove I passed things that held memories. I passed Cabela's, our final destination in Michigan, and thought of the time Casey and I got up at 6:30 and drove an hour and a half just to be two of the first 50 people in the store to get a free $20 stainless steel coffee mug. We passed exit 84 on route 23, the exit Casey, Colin and I had to push the car to when we ran out of gas on the high way coming back from another Cabela's trip. Exit 90 was where I used to get off to get to my apartment. Exit 117 was where I would go to meet with a group of youth pastors every Thursday morning, and the exit I took to go to Steve's, my hunting buddy's, house.

We spent a few hours in Frankenmuth, it was great to see my wife like she was, all excited like a five year old on Christmas morning, seeing her face when she saw the countless different ornaments, and the lights. We had a great time.

On the way back we stopped in Flint/Burton/Grand Blanc, where I had lived and ministered for ten months. We drove by the church I used to work at. I don't know what I was expecting to feel when I got there, it was the first time I'd been back since I left last October. Honestly though, I felt nothing. No feeling of being home, it felt kind of foreign, almost as if I'd never been there.

We went and got a pizza from Benito's, and then to Tropical Smoothie (just because they have kiwi and Robeck's doesn't), and then headed to Cabela's and then home. I'd remembered everything, exactly how to get everywhere I used to go, but it all felt strange. Whenever I go back to other places I've served, (Bedford, Mount Vernon etc.) it feels like going home. Even though things have changed, things are added other things are missing, it still feels familiar, warm and inviting. But Flint didn't have that feel.

Flint was never home. I love the teens and the young adults I got to do ministry with. I loved the youth pastors I got to spend time with, but never had Flint become home, never had I really been accepted and welcomed into the family there.

I took many lessons from my time there, and I honestly know that those lessons are the reason God sent me to Michigan. They were things I wouldn't have learned at home in Mount Vernon or at Bedford. Flint was part of my wilderness experience, a time of wondering and learning from God. It was hard, it was draining, and it hurt, but it was only temporary.

Our time in the wilderness is crucial, it's where we learn to depend on God, to rely upon Him for our very survival. He's the only one who got me through my time in Michigan. When I moved there I was alone except for Him, and most of the time I was up there He was all I had. He gave me some people who helped bandage some of the wounds I received, and He'll do that for all us in our time in the wilderness. But a majority of it has to be simply us and Him. I've never felt as alone as I did in Michigan (taking nothing away from the true friends I made there, I love and thank you all), God really was all I had most of that time.

When I sat to write this I didn't really know where it was going. I don't know who needs this, but just know that in your wilderness time, when it feels like you're all alone, God is there. I've started to notice that at stages of life there is a verse I constantly have to go back to. Right now it's 1 Timothy 4.12, "Let no one look down on your youthfulness, but rather in speech, conduct, love, faith and purity, show yourself an example of those who believe." For Michigan, the verse was Joshua 1.9, "Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous! Do not tremble or be dismayed, for the LORD your God is with you wherever you go."

Whatever your Wilderness/Michigan experience is, be strong and courageous. Do not tremble and don't be dismayed. The Lord YOUR God is with you wherever you go.

Peace be with you