This Place is Not our Home

We live in tumultuous times, with various hot-spots of warfare and violence around the world (e.g., there’s Syria today, but recently it’s also been Egypt, Libya, Afghanistan, and Iraq; plus BokoHaram’s terror campaign in Nigeria including this week’s kidnapping of 129 school children; if we go back 20 years it was the unspeakable Rwanda genocide; not to mention widespread violence in America’s inner cities; and what will come of the Russia-Ukraine clash?). Horrific natural disasters and accidents are also in the news (like the Oso, Washington, mudslide, the South Korean ferry; a few years back it was the Asian and Japan tsunamis, the Haiti earthquake, Typhoon Haiyan, etc.; plus the puzzle of Malaysian Airlines Flight 370). To top it off, we live in a super-connected digital age where nothing goes unnoticed and we get instant coverage, so any and every kind of disturbing “newsworthy” event makes it to the screen in front of us.It’s enough to overwhelm you! But pause with me a moment: what might God be saying to us amidst all the bad news (an in anticipation of future troubles)? Could it be to help us remember that this place is not our home? And to guard us from idolizing a nice life in which we’re in control?  We weren’t made to settle in here and now. After all, we’re travelers in this life. For a follower of Jesus to treat today’s world like “home” would be like backing up the U-Haul, unloading your furniture at the Interstate Highway rest stop, and moving in! The Father is also lovingly showing us that this brief existence isn’t secure—it’s not supposed to be. To walk this world is to journey on an unsafe road—that is, unsafe in terms of earthly hazards. If we try to insulate ourselves and our loved ones from affliction now, we’ll run ourselves spiritually ragged. But if we listen to God’s Word and give our lives to Jesus, we can be at peace:To me to live is Christ and to die is gain (Phil 1:21). Not even death can separate us from the Father’s eternal love(Rom 8:39-39); O death, where is your sting? (1 Cor 15:55); and one day it will be our “today” when Jesus will usher us into his radiant and all-satisfying company, assuring us, Today you will be with me in paradise (Luke 23:43