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The lives of Christians are filled with all kinds of blessings. Some of those blessings are unique and extraordinary—particularly our salvation. Ordinary blessings come to us as well, and many of them are easily taken for granted. In fact, some of them come to us so routinely that we mistakenly assume that they will always be there. Things such as home, health, food, and clothing are always there, at least for many of us. Greater blessings such as family and solid relationships can also easily be taken for granted. As the old saying goes and is too often true, “Familiarity breeds contempt.”
Stability in the smaller matters of life is a blessing that God bestows on many of His people. And though some of God’s people enjoy the blessings of stability more than others, God does not promise that these things will always be there, at least not in the way that we have known them. Even the smallest things in life are gifts from God’s hand. Learning to be content with little—even to rejoice in it—is one of the true marks of Christian maturity. It is also a signal to the world around us that we are exactly what the Bible calls us—a pilgrim people who are called to live by faith in an uncertain world.
Few stories illustrate this point better than the pilgrimage of Abraham. In Genesis 12, God calls Abraham (then called Abram) in a rather abrupt way: God’s first word to Abram is not “Hi there” or “How’s it going?” but rather “Go.” The first thing that God says to Abram is a direct command—a command to go. Few commentaries (including the book of Hebrews) overlook the fact that God effectively told Abram to go before He told him where to go. It’s as if God said, “Get up, start walking, and I will tell you where we are going along the way.” What God called Abram to was clear: He wanted Abram to walk by faith and not by sight. But where God was calling him to go was equally unclear.
Such is the nature of the life of faith. God often calls us, moves us, destabilizes us, if you will—never to injure or perplex us but always to refine us for His glory and our good. This was true for Abraham, and it is true for all the sons and daughters of Abraham who follow after him by faith.
Abraham’s willingness to follow God is even more greatly appreciated if we think about not just the life that was before him but the life that was behind him as well. Abraham may have had no idea where he was going at the beginning of Genesis 12, but he certainly knew where he was from. Abraham had enjoyed a life of stability in Ur. He had a people and place. He belonged somewhere. There were people who knew him and people whom he knew. There were trees and buildings with which he was familiar, and there were people who knew his story because they were part of it. Abraham surely had some measure of relational depth and community in the land that God called him to leave. In short, Abraham had stability.
God, however, had a different plan for Abraham. Rather than settle down into a life of comfort and ease, Abraham would prove to be the prototypical pilgrim. He was the first of a kind, one of God’s adopted children who would learn within his heart and signal with his life that in this world he would have “no lasting city” (Heb. 13:14) but would rather be a seeker of the city of God that was yet to come. Hebrews 11:9 illustrates this point by referring to the fact that over the course of Abraham’s entire life, he never truly “settled down.” Even the real estate that Abraham occupied in his earthly life indicated that his true and everlasting home was in heaven above. Thus, we are told that when he went (by faith) to the land of promise, he dwelt in tents, as did his sons Isaac and Ishmael. That they lived in tents rather than more solid, permanent homes is a way of saying that the whole time that he lived in the land of promise, he was still just passing through. Elsewhere in Scripture, Abraham is referred to as the “heir of the world” (Rom. 4:13). This highlights the irony that Abraham, rich as he was, beloved of God as he was, never truly had a permanent home in this world. God had promised him an inheritance, but when Abraham got to the land of Canaan, all he saw was dirt—not his eternal home.
What was true of Abraham became true of his sons and of his people in general. The earthly inheritance that God promised to His people was truly a blessing, but it was also a temporary one. It was part of the breadcrumb trail leading the people of God to their eternal home in heaven. It also reveals something not simply about the people of God but also about the God of His people.
When Jesus came into the world, like Abraham, He found no lasting city here. He, too, was a pilgrim passing through. He had no home to call His own, and He even contrasted Himself with animals and birds that have holes and nests to call their own, unlike Jesus Himself. That is not to say that Jesus had no lasting home, but He had no lasting home here in this present evil age. His life was defined not simply by pilgrimage but by mission. He came into this world not just to wander aimlessly through it but to redeem and rescue a people for Himself out of it. This He did by traveling through the cross, into the grave, into the tomb, and finally up into heaven. Having perfectly satisfied all that the law demands, Jesus secures for His people all that the gospel freely promises—eternal life in heaven above.
To be sure, God does indeed promise His people stability. But if we view the notion of stability from the perspective of earthly things, we will be repeatedly disappointed and frustrated. Abraham knew this. That is why he not only contented himself to dwell in tents but kept his eyes constantly fixed on the “city that has foundations, whose designer and builder is God” (Heb. 11:10). Surely Abraham and Sarah would have enjoyed designing and building their own home. To be clear, there is nothing inherently wrong with doing so. But when we view earthly things as the source of our safety, security, and stability, the eyes of our faith have become fixed on the wrong objects. Rather, our eyes should always be fixed upward and forward to heaven. That is where Christ is. That is where our hope lies. That is where our true and lasting inheritance is found as well—and in Christ that inheritance is secure.
To long for things like stability and security is perfectly normal. My wife is a missionary kid, and I am a military kid. In our adult life, we have made many moves together, each time wondering if this might be the last one. In a certain sense, only God knows what lies before any of us. He alone knows the future, and He alone knows which of our earthly homes will be our last. But there is something He knows, and He graciously allows all His adopted children to know: we have a home in heaven that is safe and secure. Technically speaking, every Christian living in this world has at least one more move in store. It might not include packing boxes, but it does include leaving these earthly tents (our bodies) and saying one last goodbye on this side of the veil. Then we will finally enter into that eternal rest God has secured for His people. Until that day comes, we remain a people passing through. We live in homes yet still dwell in tents, because God has designed something better—a heavenly dwelling for us with Himself.
In this world, Christians may often face earthly uncertainty. Who but God knows what tomorrow may bring? But our hope is secure because it is bound up in Christ, and we are secure in Him. Thus, we cherish the thought embodied in the hymn “A Debtor to Mercy Alone”:
Yes, I to the end shall endure,
as sure as the earnest is giv’n;
more happy, but not more secure,
the glorified spirits in heav’n.
Because we are in Christ, in heaven we may be more happy than we are right now, but we will not be any more secure. We are in Christ, and we cannot be more secure than that.