written September 25, 2008
Welcome to sojourn, the blog edition. This is where you can keep up to date with what’s going on in my life and ministry.
Why Sojourn?
This idea has several meanings for me. First of all, in the past five years, I have lived in three states, two countries, and over ten apartments, houses, or dormitories. For most of the past four months I have living out of a suitcase, sleeping on borrowed beds, couches, or floors. I have not had a car since May, and my primary transportation has been by shared rides, by bicycle, and by my own two feet. So in a very real sense, I have been sojourning around the country with no permanent place to call home.
“This world is not my home. I’m just a-passing through.”
The second meaning is of greater importance, and one this present state has made more dear to my heart. Deep within all of our hearts is a longing for a place called “home.” It’s a place of complete acceptance, of total understanding, and of love. It’s a place where we never have to mourn the loss of friends or feel the pain of distance from those we love. And, try as hard as we might to create such a place here, we won’t really find it until we reach our heavenly home, the place our hearts are designed to reside.
And so, our life here on earth is a sojourn. We are temporary residents, wandering as strangers in a land not our own, waiting for our final resting place, our heavenly home.
All these people were still living by faith when they died. They did not receive the things promised; they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance. And they admitted that they were aliens and strangers on earth. People who say such things show that they are looking for a country of their own. If they had been thinking of the country they had left, they would have had opportunity to return.
Instead, they were longing for a better country—a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them.
Grant us, Lord, not to be anxious about earthly things, but to love things heavenly; and even now, while we are placed among things that are passing away, to hold fast to those that shall endure; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen
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