Our kids love hotels.

I can see why. For sure.

You’ve got a pool, a TV, and a breakfast with all the packaged bakery goods you could every imagine right there at your fingertips. Who wouldn’t love gorging yourself on Little Debbie powdered donuts, taking a brief dip in the hot tub and then watching some Cartoon Network?

The hotel is one of the great parts of vacation; of course, it’s also one of the great scourges of the vacation. You pack, in our case, two adults and three kids into a single room and it’s just a matter of time until someone lights a match to the emotional powder keg you’ve created. By day 3, the room is full of thrown aside dirty clothes, used towels, toothbrushes, and road trip toys you brought in the car but couldn’t be left there. And that’s why by day 3 you are fully reminded that although pleasant for a while, this room is much, much different than home.

Of course that’s true. And it’s even more true when we think about all of what God has provided for us in our current context. These bodies? These homes? These jobs? Even these relationships? These are enjoyable; they are glorious; but they are not the end game. They’re not home. C.S. Lewis would say it like this: “Our Father refreshes us on the journey with some pleasant inns, but will not encourage us to mistake them for home.”

It’s interesting that this quote from Lewis came during his treatise regarding suffering in the world, The Problem of Pain. To Lewis, one of the redeeming parts of human pain is the heavenly reminder that we are living in a hotel. A pleasant hotel, sure – but still a hotel. It is through loss that God sometimes graciously reminds us of where our true value and lasting residence lies.

Ironically, my daughter and I will be going on a short trip together this weekend and, yes, we will stay in a hotel. The hotel will be pleasant, but it will not be home. And it’s always the best to go home.