We Are Nearing Home!

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Have you ever come home, and still felt like all you wanted was to go home?  I've caught myself in that strange place--home but not home--and I've wondered about it.  Why wouldn't I feel at home in my own house?

Maybe Abraham felt that way sometimes, coming into his tents at night, knowing in his head God had promised him the land right outside his door, but still being a stranger in it, still traveling from place to place, never knowing just when he'd settle for sure.  

Like him, as long as we're on this earth, we're still just nearing home.  We won't be home until Jesus comes again, and we settle into our homes He has prepared for us.  Until then, good old hymns like this one, tucked away in the memory bank, remind me to keep walking forward, step by step, because the real home isn't as far away as it seems.

If you're looking for music to this hymn, check The Church Hymnal:  The Official Hymnal of the Seventh-day Adventist Church (or more commonly and affectionately referred to as "The Old Hymnal").  It's number 642, and it's found in the index under the titles "Just Over the Mountains" and "We are Nearing Home!"  (You might even be able to find a copy of this hymnal on Amazon, if you don't have one already.)

We are Nearing Home!

Arranged by C.P. Whitford

Words by John R. Sweney

Just over the mountains in the promised land

Lies the Holy City built by God's own hand.

As our weary footsteps gain the mountain's crest,

We can view our homeland of eternal rest.

Chorus

We are nearing home, we are nearing home!

See the splendor gleaming from the domes afar,

See the glory streaming through the gates ajar!

There we soon will enter never more to roam,

Hear the angels singing--

We are nearing home, We are nearing home!

From the roles of the prophets we have long been told

Of that wondrous city with its streets of gold.

Now with raptured vision we can see it there,

With its walls of jasper and its mansions fair.

Chorus

Those who enter that city are the chosen few

Who keep God's commandments--faith of Jesus, too.

There we'll lift our voices through the endless days

In sweet songs of gladness and in psalms of praise.

Chorus

My brother, my sister, will you meet us there,

In that land of sunshine where there'll be no care?

Accept of God's message and to Him be true,

Then when Jesus cometh, He will call for you!

Chorus