Home (a poem)

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Home

One day you travel home, but the roads don’t look the same
The familiar is a comfort, but it’s not a firm foundation
Others are moving on, and you’ve moved on, too
The places you once pinned your dreams on no longer hold allure for you

Spacious houses, sprawling yards, miles of marketplace spread out like a buffet
They can’t match the table prepared for you in the place your affections now lie
You have no desire for stadiums
No need to be included among the pretty who descend on the city
You were made for another world
You can make your home anywhere, because He has made His home with you
And there is nowhere in all this earth that His goodness, love and mercy won’t follow

He has set you into His family, who dwell in all the world
And together you are being built into a house for Him
Chiseled into a holy dwelling place, a city for a King

But come as you are
Come in right off the streets
In your tennis shoes and dirty clothes
With your stains and scars and broken hearts
There is room for you here— a room with a view
And rest for your soul
You need not be already fit for a King
Because the King was fit for you
And better is one day in His courts than thousands elsewhere

They do come in off the streets, these brothers and sisters of yours
And more will be ushered in
It will be the lowly who come
Because they’re not too busy, not too proud
The King must have His banquet full
His eyes search the whole earth for those who seek Him
Who will seek Him in spirit and in truth?

They trickle in
One by one
Then more
Let them pour
Let them run
Come and see!
Taste and eat!
Be made whole
Be made clean
Be made ready for the King

Together our souls
They long for the courts of the Lord
So open wide the gates
That the King of Glory may come in
He will make His home with us
And ours with Him
Forever our Immanuel
Forever the Home of our hearts