Tuesday, August 24, 2010

Home.

The old glassware and candle-holders we’ve had stashed in the kitchen cabinet for something like 11 years? Headed for the give-away box. All those clothes that don’t fit us anymore? Packed up and gone. Even the couches will be going.

Because my dad has been out of work intermittently over the past year, my family is prepping our house for a move. We have no idea what's going to happen, but if it all goes through, we’ll be renting a small apartment in another city by the end of the year.

In so many ways, this situation is a blessing. And in so many ways, it keeps making me think of another subject that’s been on my mind lately: heaven. Somehow, the prospect of moving is helping to make me more sharply aware of the transience of our time in this world. If someone were to ask me where I’m from, I feel like any of these replies would be much more accurate than a mere statement of our current address--

We're foreigners, just traveling for a little while. Our home isn't around these parts, but I’m headed there soon.

Oh, we're living in the Bay Area for now, but we're really just visitors.

Funny you should ask- by birth, we're actually citizens of another country. I'm happy here, but I can’t wait to go home.

I’ve been meditating on Hebrews 11:13-16 this week, and I’m getting more excited the more I think about it. Read it slowly, and let the promise sink in.

“These all died in faith, not having received the things promised, but having seen them and greeted them from afar, and having acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the earth. For people who speak thus make it clear that they are seeking a homeland. If they had been thinking of that land from which they had gone out, they would have had opportunity to return. But as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared for them a city.”

I don’t belong here. Not in this house, not in an apartment, not in California at all—nowhere in this world. I don’t belong here, because I was made for heaven. That’s the sweet refrain I can’t get out of my mind.

Do you tend to see yourself as more of an “exile” and a “stranger” here, or a permanent resident? Which home seems more real to you—heaven, or earth? Why?