Psalm 39 Continued…
One of the paradoxical dilemmas believers face is living in an alien world, ever aware that it is not our home. Abraham, is the archetype “stranger” for us. He made his home in the alien society of Canaan, looking for a city “…with foundations, whose architect and builder is God.” (Hebrews 11:10)
The effectiveness of our Christian witness depends to a large degree on how well we live out this life. Malcolm Muggeridge, the English satirist and journalist, feared that we might fail to recognize this call. He wrote: “The only ultimate disaster that can befall us, I have come to realize, is to feel ourselves to be at home here on earth. As long as we are aliens we cannot forget our true homeland, which is that other kingdom You proclaimed.”
George MacDonald wrote, What’s Mine’s Mine. In his novel, Ian, one of the main characters, says to his farmer brother Alister: “But I am sometimes not a little afraid lest your love for the soil get right into your soul. We are here but pilgrims and strangers. God did not make the world to be dwelt in, but to be journeyed through. We must not love it as he did not mean we should. If we do, he may have great trouble and we much hurt ere we are set free from it.”
It is this dilemma that I referenced early on. There is a delicate balance between being a “pilgrim and stranger” in this world and a “permanent resident.” When we fall in love with this world, we no longer possess the land, we are possessed by it.
PRAY
Father we long to dwell with you in our true home!