I remember the first time it happened. Jan and I were returning from a conference in the first year of our pastoral ministry. We had driven eight hours away to spend a few days with fellow pastors and were on our return trip home. About an hour out, we felt a shift take place in the Spirit. We passed through a boundary. It was like we were reentering an invisible zone, a place not seen with human eyes. In the coming years as we matured in the things of the Spirit, we would understand this experience to be an indicator that we had reentered the realm of our geographic assignment.

Over the years, each time we returned home, we realized we were not returning as the same people who left to make the trip. In our time away where mutual encouragement and words from the Lord were added to our lives, we came home as changed people. What at first seemed like a strange wall to pass through, had now become a familiar and welcoming experience. On each return, we had become stronger in our faith and more informed in the ways of God.

If you are on a return trip home, the wall of recognition you feel on the return to your place of assignment will not be something that should produce fear or apprehension. It will be a reminder that no matter what you have to face on your return, God will have equipped you in your absence to address all that awaits you when you finally return home.