A Divine Homing Instinct

Like most people, I eventually entered a phase of life during which I became eager to know who my ancestors were. My clan hasn’t exactly been making headlines over the past two centuries, so I had to resort to government records, church registries, headstones, and faint memories passed on by family members.

I recently found myself studying the face of a great-grandfather (born in 1882), thanks to a government document that features a photo. Even though the generations who came before appeared to age faster than people nowadays, the furrows on his face suggest that his life wasn’t easy. He married in 1905, and my grandfather became their first child later that year.

That is about all I really know about him—a photographic likeness and a handful of vital statistics. I am left to wonder about the details.

How did he fall in love? What did his laugh sound like? Was he an introvert, like me, who liked to be left alone? Did he love philosophy, or did he even have time for it? Did he suffer? Was he a believer?

On this side of glory I may never know. I suppose I could look him up in the books when I arrive in the kingdom, but I’m hoping to meet him in the resurrection so I can look him in the eye. If that happens, I suspect I’ll pause for a moment to see if there is a glimmer of recognition in his eye: Would he somehow recognize his own?

Defining Self

Maybe I’m stretching Paul’s statement that I will be known in the resurrection beyond his intention; he is, after all, referring to the fact that God knows each of us intimately. Would that ability spill over into each of us, even a little bit? I don’t know. I’m keen to find him, though, and ask a few questions. And then I’d like to work my way down the family tree a bit. Right now the genealogical trail runs cold in 1682.

Defining self is an essential part of what it means to be human: If we can discern where we come from, we sense that it might help us understand who we are. Sadly, for most of us the information is sparse. Should the world last, I suppose the internet will provide my descendants with a lot more information—although some of it will be either polemical or hagiographical, informed by the opinions of those who hated me (we all have a few of those) and those who perhaps liked me a bit too much.

My wife really ought to be the one to populate that database, to be honest.

At some point we all come to our senses in this pigpen of a world and realize we’ve got a much better alternative than this meaningless, painful existence.

Finding Our Place

Years ago I read the story of an adopted teen who was suddenly possessed by an intense desire to find his genetic family. This was before the days of widespread DNA testing, and he resorted to hacking his way into government and hospital databases. He was successful.

His story forced me to ask why someone would be willing to break the law—risk real-world consequences—in pursuit of his identity. Why do we find it so important to figure out our origin? And why do we not find other living beings doing the same, apart from offspring and parents being distressingly separated in the animal kingdom? I recently watched a video of a mother koala who’d lost her joey in a storm, pitifully picking her way across a field, calling out in the hopes of recovering him. That happens all the time. But animals, to the best of my knowledge, do not tell the stories of their ancestors.

There is a Bible next to my laptop, and a large portion of what is written there addresses our deep-seated need to understand our place in this universe rather directly: “And He has made from one blood every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth,” Paul told the Athenian philosophers, “and has determined their preappointed times and the boundaries of their dwellings, so that they should seek the Lord, in the hope that they might grope for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us; for in Him we live and move and have our being, as also some of your own poets have said, ‘For we are also His offspring’ ” (Acts 17:26-28).

To put it simply, we have a hardwired homing instinct. There’s a reason you’re desperate to know who you are and where you belong: God made sure of it. Why? Because He knows where you belong, but He’s not about to force you home. He’s like the prodigal’s father, scanning the horizon for a returning child. And at some point we all come to our senses in this pigpen of a world and realize we’ve got a much better alternative than this meaningless, painful existence.

There’s even a passport photo of your Father; you’re going to have to read all 66 books to piece it together, but on your second, hundredth—even thousandth—time through the material, you’re going to start seeing Him.

That’s your Father. And I guarantee you’ll get to meet Him in the resurrection, where He most certainly will recognize you.