The Wisdom of Torres

"Imagine 10 years after you stop playing, you go back, you look around, you are not in any picture, you have no medals, no trophies; it is like you played for nothing.

"You may have a fantastic car, a fantastic home, but what does it matter?

"You can have a contract that is better than your friends, but no player looks back and says: 'I won more money'."

I'm sure Torres is on to something in his final sentence.

Finding your true home

Where is home for you? If you have moved away from the place where you grew up, you might find yourself asking that question. When you have moved a few times to different areas you do think about where you really are at home.

I had this discussion with a couple who are in full time itinerant ministry. I commented that having moved so many times - their most recent one being from the dream home to a comfortable but much less spacious semi - it couldn't be easy to feel settled. A sense of rootlessness must surely accompany such moving around.

Usually people talk about such challenges in terms of sacrifice and the emotional and psychological upheavel of such a lifestyle.

Their answer was one I hadn't expected - though I should have. They said that as far as they were concerned, their home was in heaven and their reward was in heaven. Like Abraham, they went out not knowing where they were going (Hebrews 11.8). And like Abraham they are looking for the city built by God (Hebrews 11.10).

I haven't heard anyone make that kind of statement in years. It is so refreshing. It is what Christians used to believe. Perhaps we still do but just don't talk about. It wouldn't do us any harm to talk about it a bit more often. Hope you had the privilege of at least one conversation like this over the holiday season.