Finding Home in a Fractured Age
It was a fresh kindness to come home again from overseas—to the budding and leafing of new life everywhere. The pear trees in white blossom. The peaches not far behind. And especially my children, springing from the house in their own way, sprinting and leaping into our arms.
Spring is the season when God reminds us of new birth—of mercies new every morning, yet somehow more visible, more abundant, in the awakening of creation around us. After the night’s rain, stepping outside into the endless choir of birdsong lifts my spirit and steadies my heart with wonder, gratitude, and expectation. He makes all things new.
But one of the ways He makes all things new is not by replacing what is old. It is by renewing it—by refusing the entropy of a world where things fall apart and the center cannot hold, and instead restoring what has been, preserving it, and causing it to flourish again.
Home in an Age of Exile
I am increasingly persuaded that in this age of radical individualism, many are weary of the exile of aimless independence. They are searching—often without words—for a people among whom they can abide. A place where life is not improvised from moment to moment, but received as an inheritance: an interconnected continuity of love and faithfulness woven through generations.
In a world that commodifies everything—even love, even church—where people are treated as consumers and relationships as products for the passing appetites of distracted buyers, covenant durability has become a rare grace. And therefore a refuge.
This theme surfaced repeatedly during our recent days in the Netherlands with dear brothers and sisters there. Again and again, we heard the language of home: the end of wandering, the rest of belonging, the quiet trust found in God’s design for an enduring compact of faithfulness—the grace we call the Body of Christ.
One dear sister said, “I’ve always made friends easily. It always began so well. But they never stayed. And again and again, I found myself alone, asking, ‘Is this what it was meant to be?’”
Another spoke of decades poured into ministry—opening his home, preaching the gospel, laboring to build a culture of family where people might feel safe and loved. Yet again and again, he watched things fray. The house would empty. Relationships would sour. The center would not hold.
And then he described what he has now found: not merely a message that invites, but a life that anchors. Not merely the promise of belonging, but a culture of care and discipleship strong enough to confront what within us is hostile to our own aspirations for faithfulness.
“Thank you for accepting me into this family,” he said.
When he finished, there was not a dry eye in the room.
That same day, fourteen brothers and sisters from different backgrounds made the good confession before many witnesses and were baptized in the matchless name of Jesus. And afterward—oh, the joy. The embraces and laughter. The unfeigned affection. Worship swelling around us as brothers and sisters greeted one another with the pure language of the kingdom, “Welcome home. I’m so glad we’re together. Isn’t this wonderful?”
In that moment, an old song played as the soundtrack of the miracle unfolding—one I’ve heard long before I understood the language of covenant:
It seems we’ve been together forever.
Seems like we have the same heart.
We’ve got a bond that nothing can sever.
Nothing can tear us apart.
We’ll survive the stormy weather.
We’ll laugh and cry together.
Your love gives me the strength to stand,
side by side and hand in hand.
We are family—now I can clearly see;
We are family—that’s what we are.
Memories of the times we’ve had,
through all the good and bad.
Forever, we will always be—we are family.
I remember Sister Julie (now in glory) singing it when I was a child, before my mind knew the vocabulary of commitment or sacrifice. Yet even then, I sensed something deeper than words passing among the adults who sang it—a recognition that exile was ending, and they were coming home.
Now therefore you are no longer foreigners and strangers, but fellow citizens with God’s people and also members of his household. (Eph. 2:19)
Isn’t that what the Body of Christ should be? A place where love remains. A place of such improbable affection among ordinary people that unbelievers must conclude that the Messiah has come, because only a visitation of that magnitude could explain the endurance and flourishing of such love.
The Shape of Faithfulness
It was a treasure to minister alongside brothers like Daniel, Brother Howard, and Judah, who traveled with us. Time with Brother Howard is always a gift—his humor, his indomitable faith, the breadth of his wisdom, and even his energy in this, his 80th year. And it moved me deeply to see him received with such warmth in the Netherlands, welcomed into homes and hearts by people who recognized in him the fruit they long for in their own lives and congregations.
As I drove him from place to place in our rented Ford Focus between gatherings, memories surfaced unbidden—moments as vivid as when they first unfolded.
I remembered Brother Howard joking with me as a boy after I suffered a bad allergic reaction to bee stings, telling me how he once reached into a honeysuckle bush after a Coke bottle and grabbed a hornet’s nest instead. I remembered 2004, when my father was rushed to the hospital in the night. There was no road to the back of our mobile home, but somehow Brother Howard brought the Expedition straight to the porch so Dad would not have to descend the steep front steps. I remembered decades of phone calls between him and Dad and Mom through decades of ministry—good reports and crises alike—and never once a trace of faithlessness or self-concern. Always present. Always giving.
In the final months before my father’s passing in 2021, he was largely confined to bed. My mother and father used text messages as a kind of intercom across the house. One early morning, before most were awake, Dad texted for help—thinking he was messaging Mom. Instead, he had texted Brother Howard.
Brother Howard, who lived a distance away and had never received such a request, replied without hesitation, “I’ll be right there.”
Five minutes later: “I’m in the driveway. Should I come in?”
Only then did Dad realize his mistake.
Every apology was brushed aside. Brother Howard insisted it was nothing and wished only he could have been more useful. Later that day, Dad told me the story from his bedside. When he spoke of Brother Howard arriving, he broke down in quiet tears. After a long silence, he looked up and said, “I pray you boys are blessed enough to have friends like Howard.” Then he added softly, “And so many others,” and began naming them one by one. (Brother Howard has been friends with my parents on this faith journey for 55 years this summer.)
A friend loves at all times, and a brother is born for a time of adversity. (Prov. 17:17)
And that is the point. I could just as easily be describing anyone—because it is the Body of Christ. Others could tell even more profound stories: of the care shown to Brother Dadi during his health battle; of the sacrifice and tenderness poured out for a young mother facing a difficult pregnancy; of the unbroken, round-the-clock presence kept beside every brother and sister who passes from this life—Brother Robert, Sister Darla, all of them. And all of it is one story: learning to become the kind of people, and to build the kind of culture, where friends stay—where steady, dependable faithfulness becomes both refuge and home amid the world’s storms and perturbations.
And everything we do—every sermon, every page written, every project undertaken, every resource spent—is empty if it is not in service of this.
But it is all worth it if this love still exists.
Look upon Zion . . . . your eyes will see Jerusalem, an undisturbed habitation, a tent which will not be folded. (Isa. 33:20)
As I look at my own friendships—the notes received this week, the calls, the letters, the small and selfless gestures—I find myself thinking of my father’s words.
Dad, I believe we have found what you prayed we might. Not the fortune of places or possessions or recognition, but the fortune of friends who stay.
God help us to be that for one another—and to prize it as the rarest gift in a world of fickle affections and fractured love.