I've been away from home for nearly a week now and I'm missing my husband and my girls tremendously. Experiences just don't seem as real without being able to share them. Home is what I long for and it's what the people listed in Hebrews 11 also longed for, only a different home - our Eternal Home.
They saw it way off in the distance, waved their greeting, and accepted the fact that they were transients in this world. People who live this way make it plain that they are looking for their true home. If they were homesick for the old country, they could have gone back any time they wanted. But they were after a far better country than that - heaven country. You can see why God is so proud of them and has a City waiting for them. (11: 14-15)
The emphasis of this chapter is not the exemplary lives of the characters listed, but that God is proud of them because they were looking for their true home. Why does it matter to God that these people of faith weren't building cities for themselves here on earth? Perhaps that's the very definition of their faith - they weren't trying to make this life their home by managing life well or seeking good things more than Him. They were trusting God for what they would receive in this life and waiting in grief and anticipation for what they longed for in their True Home.
"The more we have a glimpse of what could be, the more we grieve at what's not." (Crabb)
What are you anticipating and grieving? What does that reveal about the home you long for?
1 comment:
I love the comparison of Mt. Sinai to Mt. Zion, "Unlike your relatives, you didn't come to Mt. Sinai - all that volcanic blaze and earthshaking rumble - to hear God speak... You've come to Mt. Zion, the city where the living God resides."
What a beautiful comparison! Crabb shared something this past week based on this - Those who call on the name of the Lord will live in the presence of Mt. Zion. We are rescued to live in sight of Mt. Zion instead of backing away from Mt. Sinai - Joel 2:32, "On Mt. Zion...there will be a great rescue - just as God said."
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