January 11, 2021
This world is not my home.
I’m just passing through
My treasures are laid up
Somewhere beyond the blue
The angels beckon me
From Heaven’s open door
And I can’t feel at home in this world anymore
My grandparents sang this song for years, and it began running through my mind recently. Whether we are in a phase of life where overwhelming tasks turn into endless exhaustion or where uneventful days multiply into monotony, heaven can seem distant in daily life. We may look up into the starry celestial sky and feel miles away from the One who created it. The assuming divide between the earthly and heavenly realms occurs naturally for there’s only one of those realms we can see. Before we know it, we get rattled, wound up, and spent over what we can see, and we lose sight of the greater eternal things we cannot see. We forget about praying. We forget that we can cry out to God our Help and He hears us. We can open our Bibles and read of Jesus and learn how to be spiritually focused in a world that does its best to distract us.
Last week during a rough day, I cried, “Oh Jesus, I wish you were here.” As Christians here on Earth, dealing with our own sinful nature and living among our fallen world can make the divide from our heavenly home seem even greater. Yet, as I cried out, His Spirit flooded my thoughts as He reminded me that He has been here in flesh. He knows how it feels. He lived as a man within this struggling world. He saw sin, sadness, misery, and death. He understands our pain and tears, for that’s exactly why He came. He came so that we might have hope. Jesus kept his eyes on His heavenly purpose and fulfilled it.
His example reminds me not to get disheartened by worldly mess: politics, sin, confusion of right and wrong, for Jesus never strayed. He focused on spending time with His Heavenly Father so He could accomplish His Father’s will. There were distractions for Him too. He was wanted as an earthly savior as some believed He’d free them from Roman tyranny. He felt the pressure of what others wanted and experienced their disappointment when He deviated from their plans of who He should be. Some were even disappointed when Jesus died and thought Him a failure. Oh the irony of this misunderstanding, for it was only by His failing of earthly expectations that He secured the salvation of humanity!
Friends, let’s be like Jesus. Let’s not allow the condition of the world to cause us to lose heart or heavenly focus. This world is not our home. We are just passing through.
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