Welcome to today's encouragement from Our Daily Bread.

Our Devotional today titled Faith Conversations at Home was written by John Blaze.

There's no place like home. There's no place like home.

Those unforgettable lines spoken by Dorothy and the Wizard of Oz

reveal a storytelling device found in an overwhelming number of our most enduring stories

from the likes of Star Wars to the Lion King.

It's known as the hero's journey.

In brief, an ordinary person is living an ordinary life

when an extraordinary adventure is presented. The character leaves home and travels to a

different world where tests and trials await, as well as mentors and villains. If she or he

passes the tests and proves heroic, then the final stage is

returning home with stories to tell and wisdom gained. The last piece is crucial. The story of the

demon-possessed man in Mark Chapter 5 closely parallels the hero's journey. It's interesting that in the last scene, the man begged

Jesus to let him go with him. Yet, Jesus told him, go home to your people. It was important

in this man's journey to return home to the people who knew him best and to tell them his amazing

story. God calls each of us in different ways and to different scenarios.

But for some of us, it can be crucial for our faith journey to go home

and tell our story to those who know us best.

For some of us, the call is there's no place like home.

Thank you. Some of us, the call is there's no place like home. Today's Our Daily Bread devotional scripture reading is from the Gospel of Mark,

chapter 5, verses 11 through 20.

A large herd of pigs was feeding on the nearby hillside.

...