Longing for a Better Country
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. – Hebrews 11:16
God has led us to some faith-stretching places — places where His direct provision was the only option for meeting our needs. I have several spiral-bound notebooks full of detailed lists of things that came to us un-looked for: everything from socks and peanut butter to stoves and automobiles to a $10,000 down payment to buy the home where we were living. Sometimes His provision has come in a new way to use or re-use something, or a creative way to solve a problem. We have been fed, clothed, healed, comforted and encouraged. I am surrounded by and am able to create beauty. So why am I longing for a better country?
I know I don’t belong here. I have a home somewhere else: One with no weeds, thorns or turmoil; One where moths don’t eat the rugs and slugs don’t eat the lettuce; But mostly one where I will see the face of the Invisible God who has been my Guide through these sixty-plus years. He has prepared a city for those who believe Him, as demonstrated in their actions. Those actions are as varied as the circumstances in which people live who trust Him.
For the ancients, it was things like building a three story, unanchored zoo building because God warned Noah that something that no one had ever experienced (rain) was going to fall in such large amounts that only those in the floating box would survive. God said it. Noah believed it resulting in actions that reflected that belief. Or, it was like an old man with an old wife leaving an established city, home and life-style to take up a nomadic life in the land God had told him would be his. When he died, Abraham only owned a burial cave there, which he had bought. He did not take for himself what had been promised. Abe waited.
God has promised me and all who put their lives where His mouth is another home. While I wait here I experience some of that home’s benefits: the comforting presence of God (i.e.: the Holy Spirit lives in me.), healing for wounds in my body and in my relationships, beauty (Have you seen a flower lately or a lovely face, listened to the birds or a symphony?), worship with others who love Him (Throne room time, anyone?) All these and more keep the longing alive to get to that better country, that city made without hands. I don’t want Him to be ashamed to be called my God, so I choose to live
Following Jesus every day in the everyday,
Christi
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