Hometown

Hometown. After a harrowing journey on Sunday, we finally made it to my hometown in upstate New York. It was nice to pull off of the exit after spending two hours battling through a snowstorm driving through Pennsylvania. So much of my hometown is still the same as it was when I lived here twenty-five years ago, but there are quite a few things that have changed. One of the things that has changed the most is me!  I’m not the same person I was when I left this place. I left here completely against all things religious and now I come back each year as a born-again child of God.

I don’t believe the same things I used to, I don’t talk the same way I used to and I don’t act the same way I used to. My worldview has changed, I now see the world through the lens of scripture. I look at things and how they relate to the truth of God’s Word. Relationships get harder when you come home and people think you are still the same person you were when you left but you’re not. Most people I am close to understand who I have become and respect that I’m not who I used to be.

I think of Christ, as He grew up the son of a carpenter and then left His hometown. Once His ministry began, He was no longer the Jesus the people remembered Him to be. He left the son of Joseph and returned the Son of God. People had a hard time believing He was the promised Messiah because they had known Him since He was a boy.

“‘Is not this the carpenter's son? Is not his mother called Mary? And are not his brothers James and Joseph and Simon and Judas? And are not all his sisters with us? Where then did this man get all these things?’ And they took offense at him. But Jesus said to them, ‘A prophet is not without honor except in his hometown and in his own household.’ And he did not do many mighty works there, because of their unbelief.” - Matthew 13:55-58.

I’m in no way comparing myself to Jesus, I’m comparing my situation of going home to the response He had when He returned as well. Neither of us were the same when we returned as we were when we left. Have you left your hometown as a different person than you are today?  I know how you feel.

Have a great day and God bless.