In Thomas Wolfe’s posthumously-published novel, You Can’t Go Home Again, George Webber ponders, "You can't go back home to your family, back home to your childhood ... back home to a young man's dreams of glory and of fame ... back home to places in the country, back home to the old forms and systems of things which once seemed everlasting but which are changing all the time — back home to the escapes of Time and Memory."  Though it has taken many meanings in pop culture, this realization underscores the difficulty in returning to a former way of life.

We are always wanting to go forward without a backward glance, much less the consideration that we ought to return to the deeds and places of the past.  New ventures stir the imagination and give momentum while the old tend to dull the senses and slow progress. At least that’s the way it seems. “Casting vision,” frequent terminology for those forwardly-inclined, makes it seem that the future is far away and only for those bold enough to go where no one has ever gone before.  Return seems like retreat, an admission of failure or even wrongdoing. No one wants to be seen in that light.

On the other hand, Scripture often encourages us to do just that- go home.  The demon-possessed Gadarene wanted to follow Jesus in His journeys, but the Lord told him to go home and tell his friends of God’s great working in his life.  So, it is not God’s plan for everyone to move, pull up stakes, whatever, to serve Him. Going home, however, may not need be geographical. Many times, we need to reassess our current situation and consider returning to a former way of thinking or living.  John the Revelator wrote that the congregants in one church should return to their “first works.”

It’s not easy staying home while others seek their fortunes elsewhere, much less travelling back after misdeeds or failure.  Humiliating. But there might be another way of looking at it. I have come to believe that it takes courage to admit wrongdoing.  It’s wise, even honorable, to put it in reverse when you realize you’re on the wrong road. Of course, it can be easier to keep forging ahead in a lost cause, too prideful to admit your mistakes.  In the Old Testament, the roads to the cities of refuge were kept in good repair. They were needed. Today, a lot of folks need a way back, but there’s no direction home.

Crushed with guilt and deprivation, the prodigal realized he needed to go home.  He did not believe he would be welcomed there. Going home meant admission he was wrong, disloyal and a failure.  His pride could have kept him in the far country. If he’d communicated with his older brother, he would have stayed there.  But the father was a different story.  As it turned out, he was the only one who mattered.

Maybe, you need to go home.  If going home means swallowing your pride- so be it.  It won’t be easy, but it’s the right thing to do. Don’t die in a foreign land.  Someone is waiting…at home.

Sterl