For the past 54 years, a small town near me, celebrates the coming home of the salmon with a festival.  It is two days of music, art, food and, of course, the stars of the celebration, salmon!  Over a hundred thousand people attend the festival each year, rain or shine.  We look forward to it every fall.

The phenomenal center of the festivities is the chinook and coho salmon who are returning after swimming out to the ocean and spending three or more years in the saltwater before coming back home to spawn or lay their eggs.  It is something that is ingrained in them from birth.  They will return to where they were born without using GPS or a compass.  Swimming hundreds of miles, some even venturing as far as Alaska, they migrate back to be welcomed home by crowds of people.

It is a wonder in the animal kingdom, how creatures, big and small have the instinctive notion to “come home”.  There are birds, fish, mammals, insects and more, migrating seasonally or in greater cyclical patterns.  These magnificent critters sense it’s time to return home.  Do we have the same instinct?

Regardless of how much I love the adventure of traveling, there is nothing better than coming back home.  The comfort of familiar surroundings is hard to surpass!  I wonder if that’s the feeling we’ll have when we get to heaven.  As a faith believer, heaven to me is real.  There is comfort in knowing that there will be a welcoming of saints that have gone before. Joy will be waiting in the coming home celebration.

Do we instinctively go to heaven?  We choose our faith journey.  I think it’s instinctive to want to believe in someone greater than us, but the options are many in this world.  Faith is a personal choice sometimes driven by cultural and geographic influences.  Then there are the other distractions of busyness and stuff.  When bombarded with tangible diversions, choosing to have a faith foundation is easily overlooked. 

I think we go through life searching for answers – justification for miracles around us.  Until we have that come to Jesus moment, we may not experience the comfort in truly coming home.  The decision to believe doesn’t need to be a fanfare-filled celebration.  Inviting Jesus to be a part of your life can come in the most unassuming quiet instance.  The invitation awaits.