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Going Home

Mark 2:1 “A few days later, when Jesus again entered Capernaum, the people heard that he had come home.”

I was stopped in my tracks as I read this verse today. The Savior of the world had come home. I know theologically that Jesus led a life just like ours and that he lived to give us an example of how men who truly know God live. Seeing it lived out in such an ordinary way, however, was stunning to me.

As he was ministering on earth, he had chosen Capernaum as his home town. This was the home town of Peter and Andrew and it appears he often stayed at Peter’s home. From the pictures I have seen Peter’s home is very large so there would have been plenty of room to create a space for Jesus (Peter’s Rabbi) to call his own.

As I read this, I was reminded that I need a home base. I need a place I can go where the stress drops off and I can recharge. I need people in my life who are encouraging and believe that I can do what is on my heart. I need an environment that is refreshing and fun and inviting. I feel very privileged to have a home life that is working well. I would never say that every moment with my wife is awesome but Pam and I find a way to laugh every day, even when we don’t like what is going on that day. I consider my grown boys some of my best friends. I also have friends with whom I love to spend time.

As I was thinking about this, I realized why this verse jumped out at me. This is why I do what I do. This is why I write books on marriage and family. This is why I spend most weekends speaking to groups about marriage and family. Everyone needs a home base that helps them recharge. Everyone needs relationships that are encouraging. Too few people know how to get there and the desire to help them figure it out has gripped my heart.

If you have any insight into creating an environment in your home base that works, share it. Don’t keep it to yourself and don’t hide it from others. Everyone needs a place to come home.

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  1. “Home.” I has such a lovely ring to it, doesn’t it? Bob and I travel a lot, just like you and Pam, and there’s always that sigh of relief when be begin to see the foothills near our home. … or when we look out the plane window and see familiar sites.

    Thanks for the reminder that home is important for relaxing our stresses, recharging our batteries, restoring our relationships, renewing our goals, and reviving our hearts in the Lord.

  2. hey Bill, it’s funny that I decided to read this post today because i was just thinking about this very topic earlier today! you are so right on…it’s important that each of us have somewhere to recharge, relax and feel safe. the world (work, school, customers, co-workers, etc) can be stressful at times and we can feel “beat up”. my wife and I have very different personalities and needs when it comes to our home life. knowing this was going to be an issue, we made a decision early on in our marriage to do two things: first, we communicated to each other what was important about our home and home life. For example, order and neatness was important to me, but not so important to her. Having friends and family over to our home often was very important to my wife, but not so important to me. knowing that this could be a recipe for an argument ( and we’ve had a few..) we made sure to agree on how these things could work for each other. The second thing we did was decide who was in charge of certain things when it relates to our home. this is what we later learned as “roles and responsibilities”. knowing who was responsible for taking out the trash (me) and who was in charge of laundry (my wife) made a big difference. i should confess that it took us many years to actually make this work, but the good news is that it can eventually work well. we are still working hard at this today as we’ve found that our needs change as our “life stage” changes ( having kids, new jobs, etc). thanks for writing this bro…you’ve inspired me to continue making this a priority.

  3. Just an observation about fatherhood & life in general. My wife and I have raised 4 teenagers (adopted and foster) that have given us much to ponder over the years about how we were each raised and how we try to help mold the lives of our current children (not to mention our own blood children that were raised and out on their own years before). God gives us the opportunities to raise these children as he would want them raised. During these years, I have had many issues and not known where to turn and that if the people I would seek out would even have time for me. This website is a great way to “be heard” and to seek some scriptural advice from other christian men. Thanks Bill.

  4. Hi Bill,
    I have been thinking a lot lately about “home” and where that really is. With Candy living and finishing her last year of high school in Bogotá I have been wondering if my home, place to recharge batteries is here in Santa Marta or is it in Bogotá near Candy or in the greater San Diego area. We have an active ministry here in Santa Marta with visiors frequently showing up at the door wanting to talk or a meal and sometimes just to hang out. Sometimes I think home is not here in the house becasue like this morning, two interruptions, one with Roberth, my right-hand elder in the church or the other from Luis, a Kogi indian, who stops by whenever he is in Santa Marta, to visit and share a meal. I realize more and more that to recharge I need to get away and that while here in the house the interruptions are part of doing my ministry.

    Thanks for putting into words the need to focus on recharging batteries, both physical and spiritual. I believe my battery level is getting low. I just realized that home does not necessarily mean a place. My batteries were recharged doing the Tuesday evening meeting via skype and also on Thursday morning.

    Keep up the good work.
    Glenn

    1. Glenn, once again you have given us insight into your heart which reflects so much of what us men experience. We love our work but we get tired. A good recharge does wonders to get us back in the game. Thanks for being part of the journey. I am praying that Tuesdays are a regular source of rejuvenation.

  5. This was a very difficult one for me to read since we are moving from our home that we have lived in for 8 yrs.
    We have been busy packing every day. We are leasing out our home for 2 yrs. since I have been unable to get employed.
    Our home has always been a refuge for me from work and the outside world. I have always enjoyed spending time w/ Mike when he lived
    at home. Gabrielle our daughter and I really have enjoyed time in the pool together. Debra and I have always enjoyed spending a great deal of time together
    and I believe we could work together if the Lord opened that door. We work together very well, but not w/ out conflict. I have had to ask for forgiveness many times.
    We sometimes have to stop in the middle of a conflict and just hit our knees and ask the Lord to forgive us and to give us guidance. This is something I saw modeled from
    my Dad while growing up. He and my Mom always prayed and read the word together each morning. I remembering finding him down on his knees in their bedroom many times
    while growing up.

    Godspeed,
    Brad

    1. Brad, Thank you for your transparency and insight. I believe you have spoken for hundreds of thousands of men with your words today. I am praying for you and the transition ahead.

  6. “Home”, and its place in our lives has taken on new meaning in the last couple of years. I couldn’t agree more that home and family is the calming harbor in our lives. It is a place to go to and have the pressure and stress of life relieved. It is a place we can take great joy and encouragement watching our two sons grow into manhood. However, I have found myself at a point in my life that home is being invaded by pressures and stress I was not prepared for. My wife and I both have very elderly mothers. Without going into gruesome detail of their individual health issues, we are watching them decline. We can receive a phone call at any moment, and frequently do, that rocks our home. Caller ID is a blessing and a curse. Just seeing the phone number of my mother, or the home that my wife’s mother lives at instantly changes the home environment from relaxation to stress filled. Even if the issue is minor, it can take hours for things to settle down. I have a difficult time reconciling this time of our life, but something my friend Glenn Davis has always said keeps coming to me. Glenn has always said when asked about his difficult life as a Missionary in Colombia, that life is great because I am at the center of God’s will for his life. This may be a stretch, but I have tried to take comfort in the fact that my wife and I are here for our moms. This is where God has us now and we need to be here. The moral to this story is that I have to keep reminding myself that “home” is when we are in the presence of the Lord. The path of our life is short and ends with us going home. I don’t know how these difficult times fit into KNOW it does. My prayer is that I will see the had of God in the midst of all this stuff of life. My prayer sound familiar Bill?

    1. Thanks for jumping into the discussion Steve. Your comments are a reminder of how much eaiser it is to want to be selfless than to actually be selfless. Watching over aging parents is a tough calling that we get little training or preperation for and yet we will probably all face it. I wish I had a efficient answer but we all know there are some seasons of life that need to be endured. Lord give us eyes to see what you are doing in the situations we would prefer to not have.

  7. there is an old saying, home is where the heart is. if we recharge at home, then we are recharging where our heart is. the question is, where is your heart? every man has a special someone or something or place or memory, that brings him peace or joy or comfort. as christians we also have something extra, that the world does not, the peace of God, the joy of Christ, and the comfort of the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. If our hearts are with God, then we can recharge anywhere.
    i know that i drain my battery faster in a group setting, than in one on one situations. i think because i tend to be a moderator, and strive to reconcile differing factions to a common goal. whereas in a one on one, i tend to be more give and take.
    perhaps part of my challange, is to learn to let God do the moderating, while i rest in Him. if i can do that more, i might not need to recharge as often.

    1. Thanks for sharing Lee. Your thoughts about the stress of moderating in group settings is fascinating. I think many men feel this same way and we can probably learn alot of one another in how to “let God do the moderating.” That sounds like an awesome concept that is easier to say than to do!

  8. The “world” seems to have a way of beating me up mentally. My recharging happens at home where I am around everyone i love and that loves me. We tend to form a shelter from the harsh world. Home can also be, it seems, the opposite at times and we take things out on the people we are supposed to love the most. Recharging to me sometimes then has to be a state of mind such as in reading a book at a peaceful time after everyone has gone to bed or whatever hits your hot button. Sometimes recharging is taking the wife and family and heading out to the ocean or some place fun. As was stated above, then sometime home is where the heart is at that moment. My heart usually longs for the physical home but on occassion that home home can be anywhere I am longing to be.

  9. Hello Master Men Associates; My wife and I, over the last 10 years + or – have been, as most of you know, foster parents and adoptive parents. All these years it has been filled with great highs and very sombering lows. We really have tried to teach the children that God has entrusted us with about life, love of God and love of family and that when all the world may fail you in one way shape or form, family will always be there for you. Over the years it has given my wife and myself a stronger love for each other and for our Creator and we really take serious that God has entrusted us to take care of his children and teach them and prepare them for their adult years. One of these children that I am going to speak of is a child that we have adopted. Since we received him about 10 years ago he has been a very angry young man. This anger has caused him 3 stays in Juvenile Hall and 3 group homes. He has been called “bi-polar” with schizophrenia. He turns 18 in about 3 weeks and up till this last 24 hours we have said absolutely no to a family reunification with him, which is what he wants more than anything. I have seen some advancement in his ways of thinking for the good but even with this, we did not want him back in the home. Here is my (our) dilema. If we don’t take when he turns 18 he will go either into a program (if there is availability or a space for him). If there is not the group home he is currently says that if we don’t take him, they will drop him downtown in San Diego at the local mission and he will fend for himself. After a lot of praying over this, we have decided to watch him and see how he prepares himself for the life change that will be happening to him. If he can successfully get located in to one of the transitional programs that will help him with a place to live and help find him a job. IF this is successful, we will wish him success and pray that with what options he has, he will make good choices that will give him a better start in his walk through life (I hope this all makes sense). IF, up to the last day till he is 18 nothing falls into place for him (we have done hours and hours of leg work for him as well concerning this impending exit of the group home he is in). we will take him back under our wing at home and just pray that at this late stage, that our prayers get answered, and his eyes are openend as to the gravity of his situation. We still wish to remain foster parents and have more children but this will put a hold on that because of the record he now has. He has tened toward physical demonstrations of his anger like putting holes in walls, fighting me about 2 years ago and running away. Our thinking is that, if he is starting to turn around as we have seen signs of, putting him out on the street is not what God would have wanted from us as parents. He has been emotionally taxing on us since we received him years ago. Our other boys have turned out so much better but I am wondering if, with God’s help, could he be our best success story since we started fostering? Do any of my Masterful Men associates have any words of encouragement or advice from their life’s stories and experiences that may help us in this final and possibly most life changing decisisons we will be making soon??

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