Not My Home

Recently I counted up how many times I've moved since high school - eight. I was sort of surprised by that number, particularly as I am still a few years away from being thirty. There are certainly some people that have moved a lot more times in a lot less years, but eight is a big number for me. Particularly because I detest moving.

The rigid boxes, the disorder, the unnatural "jumbulation" of your worldly goods - when else do your kitchen knives spend time with your floral stationary and your winter sweaters - the adjusting to new locations of light switches, the unfamiliar sounds of new furnaces and water pipes, the dreaded learning of new street names, new mailing addresses, new telephone numbers. Yes, I really do detest moving.

If it were up to me, I'd plant myself somewhere and live out the rest of my days there. I'd dig myself in, sinking my roots so deep that when it came time for me to leave this world, they'd have to use a backhoe to dig me out.

It's probably a good thing it isn't up to me.

In the Word, people are always on the go: Abraham, the Israelites, the prophets, even the disciples where constantly moving from place to place. Hebrews 11 highlights many of those faith giants:

By faith Abraham, when called to go to a place he would later receive as his inheritance, obeyed and went, even though he did not know where he was going. By faith he made his home in the promised land like a stranger in a foreign country; he lived in tents, as did Isaac and Jacob, who were heirs with him of the same promise. For he was looking forward to the city with foundations, whose architect and builder is God. . . .[Others]wandered in deserts and mountains, and in caves and holes in the ground. These were all commended for their faith, yet none of them received what had been promised. God had planned something better. . ." (vs. 8-10,38-40)

On our last return for The Big City I commented to Seth how the High Arid Plains don't really feel like home yet, but neither does The Big City. We're in an in-between place. We just don't really belong here or there.

And maybe that in-between place is exactly where we are supposed to be.

I won't be presumptuous and assume that I know why God seems to like to keep His people moving around a lot, or even why He moved us here. However one thing is for sure, moving eight times in just about as many years is a fantastic reminder of the fact that this world is not our home. "Surely God has planned something better . . . a city whose architect and builder is God Himself."

The more I move the more I'm looking forward to that "something better" - to that special, special city. To the place where I belong.

And once thing is for sure,when I get there I'm staying put!