“I am going there to prepare a place for you.” John 14:2 NIV
“Life is a quest, a search for fulfillment and completion.”
My thoughts today are about “the right place.”
The award winning musical, West Side Story, has a lovely song, Somewhere (Leonard Bernstein and Stephen Sondheim), in which the star crossed lovers, Tony and Maria, sing, “There’s a place for us. Somewhere a place for us, Peace and quiet and open air, Wait for us, somewhere . . somehow, some day, somewhere!” Those lyrics voiced a generation’s search – maybe everyone’s search.
Lives are spent looking for something, usually without knowing what that something actually is. Some people look for safety, a place without fear or danger. People look for success, usually for the recognition or independence that it promises. People look for comfort, a place that is without stress or striving. Others look for meaning, a place of service and contribution where their life makes a difference. Everyone is looking for something. That’s what gets you up in the morning, motivates you to give your best, and keeps you going when you feel like quitting.
Life is a quest, a search for personal fulfillment and completion. Some spend their whole life and never find that, wasting a lifetime looking for the right things in the wrong places, or looking for the wrong things altogether. Their philosophy could be summed up in these words; “There is no place anything like this place anywhere near this place, so this must be the place.” Too many people eventually settle for the next best thing. They finally accept what comes the closest to their search.
What are you looking for? Everything you do – your goals, your choices, your relationships, your effort, your sacrifice – are ultimately motivated by your search. Wouldn’t it be best to know what that is, and what it should be? I would suggest that this common, lifelong quest is a spiritual longing for where it all began – in personal relationship with the Creator, in a perfect Garden, in productive service, with pleasant companionship. See Genesis 2 NKJV.
Wouldn’t you agree with me that everything else pales in comparison with that? Jesus said that throughout your lifetime He would be busy preparing such a place just for you, but you will never find it here and you will never find it on your own.
“In My Father’s house are many places; if it were not so, I would have told you, for I go to prepare a place for you. If I go, I will come again and receive you to Myself, that where I am you may be also. And you know the way to where I am going . . I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father but through Me.” John 14:2-6 NAS. See also John 3:16-21 NLT/ Romans 10:9-10 NLT.
I believe that deep down in the heart of every man and woman there is the innate sense that the wrong place at the end of life is to be forever separated from God. If that separation is true now, it will remain true then. God put that there so you would not waste your life searching for the wrong things in the wrong places.
My prayer for you today is: find your place in Christ Jesus where you truly feel at home.