This is Your Hometown

I’m back living in Eugene now. In a few weeks, Andrea and the boys will be joining me. I’m back in my hometown after almost twenty-five years. Several songs and thoughts have been going through my mind: Bruce Springteen’s “My Hometown”, the thought “You can’t go home again”, James Taylor and J.D. Souther’s “Her Town Too”… and of course the passage where Jesus talks about a prophet being honored everywhere except in his home town. Whew! Thankfully, I’m not a prophet. (That also brought to mind Nick Lowe singing “I Knew the Bride [When She Used to Rock and Roll]. More on that in a future blog).

Many people have asked if moving here means that we’re not planning on Thailand anymore. Not at all! We’re still working towards that. What it means is that it isn’t coming as quickly as we would like. It means that we want to take time to help both our mom’s get situated before we move ten time zones away. And, most importantly, it’s moving where we feel God wants us to be for the time being. Nobody in their right mind would move only to move again. Right?

I had kind of an epiphany this morning in church. We’re working our way through “The Story” as I’m sure many of you are. At one point the pastor talked about how God told Abraham, “Pack your stuff and move. I’m not telling you exactly where, you just have to do it.” And of course, Abraham did. The pastor then went on to say how crazy that was. He then asked if any of us would be crazy enough to do that. I turned to the person sitting next to me (who knows our situation) and chuckled. “Yes, in fact, I might have an idea of how Abraham must have felt.”

For whatever reason, God told us to move to Oregon. God told us to move to the Eugene / Springfield area. Why? I don’t know! But we’re both pretty certain that’s what he told us to do. In a few weeks, Andrea and the boys will be moving as well, bringing all our belongings with them. Hopefully I will have found us someplace to live by then.

Abraham and Sarah moved because they had faith. Now, I’m not going to say that my faith is anything close to Abraham’s. But maybe this is a test of just where our faith is. This is a pretty minor move, Idaho to Oregon; housing notwithstanding. But… if we can’t trust God with this small move, how can we possibly trust him with the big one that’s coming up?