Recently, I’ve been having some pretty cool conversations with some of my squad mates. We’ve been doing a lot of reflection and future planning. We just walked into month 10 of this race together, and with no surprise to us, God started revealing some new things to us.
Just a few days ago, we received our info for our flights back home to the states. I found it so interesting to watch the squad react to one e-mail, that we all knew was coming! Some were relieved, excited, happy, ready, and even comforted by just knowing the plan. For others, receiving the information hit like a train… “What’s next?” That’s a big thought. A big question. “What’s next?” Other thoughts that follow could be, “What if it doesn’t work out?” “What if I fail?” or “What if I get lost?”
Now, if you’re a Christian, I’m sure that you already had some good answers, scripture, “a word”, or even a podcast to recommend to me to help me answer the questions I just posed. That’s awesome. I’ll receive it. But just think about those questions and apply them in your own life and tell me they don’t make your stomach quiver just a little.
Just a little?
Now, ask those questions again from the viewpoint of someone who has never put his/her hope in Jesus or hasn’t even met someone that represents hope in Jesus. If that thought doesn’t stop you in your tracks, it should.
We’re all searching for something. Every human on this earth knows that what we can physically see with our eyes isn’t all there is to life. There has to be more. The truth is, there is more. Feeling that longing in your spirit is normal. God created our spirits that way. Ecclesiastes 3:10-11 says this: “I have seen the burden God has laid on the human race. He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end.”
Isn’t that crazy? God made you to desire something that you don’t have the slightest chance of understanding with your human brain. That’s what makes him God, not us. He didn’t create you that way so that you’d never reach Him. He placed that longing in your heart so you would seek to know Him more. He’s a good God who wants his children close. But there’s an enemy that doesn’t want you close to God. He distorts truth and scatters sheep like wildfire. The enemy uses religion to make people feel separated from God and each other. Honestly though, the enemy isn’t very smart. God created us in his likeness, and whether humans realize it or not, we have many commonalities. This longing in our hearts unites us all more than we know. Take different religions for example, each want a heaven or a good “afterlife.”
Hindus believe in reincarnation.
Buddhists believe in enlightenment and nirvana.
Muslims believe in going to heaven based on good works performed while on earth.
Since I have been traveling and meeting and talking with people all over the world, I am realizing some similarities between the religions I just listed: each lack hope. None of them really have a firm foundation in their spirits of what eternity actually is and if they can fully “achieve” it.
Jesus Christ is the only way to eternity in heaven, and he bridged the gap between sin and grace. In John 14:6 Jesus says, “I am the way the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”
Something else I’ve realized from traveling and meeting others that are out actively on the search for more, is that fellow travelers seem to understand how it feels to feel like a foreigner all the time. Even in your own country. People in the Bible felt this way too. Hebrews 11, one of my favorite chapters in the entire Bible, talks about how Abraham was called to the promised land but he didn’t know where he was going. Yet, still he obeyed God’s instructions. Hebrews 11:9 says, “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 of the same promise.” Check out verse 10: “For he was looking forward to the city with foundations, whose architect and builder is God.” Aka: Heaven!
Hebrews 11 mentions so many great people of faith who all had eternity in their hearts and minds when they set out on their journeys in life. Verse 13 says that these people admitted they were “foreigners and strangers on earth.” Skip down to verse 16, which says, “Instead they were longing for a better country—a heavenly one.”
This earth isn’t all there is. So, why are we satisfied with being distracted into thinking like we can live like this is all there is? If you are not living your life with your eternity in mind, I’m going to challenge you to start. If you do live with your eternity with Jesus in mind, I’m going to challenge you to start telling others to do the same. If you don’t understand heaven, cool, me neither, but I am secure in my faith enough to tell others that they are missing out on the beauty in not understanding and having peace in midst of all chaos.
Living in the unknown can be tense. Trust me, I get it. That’s why we have to have hope. We have to have faith. We have to trust that the God that we serve, who created heaven and earth, is bigger and more mighty than our need to understand. He’s God, he’s good, and he’s enough.
It’s time to represent the truth and the life. That’s the more people are looking for. It’s literally Jesus.
2 Corinthians 1:21-22 (NIV)
“Now it is God who makes both us and you stand firm in Christ. He anointed us, set his seal of ownership on us, and put his Spirit in our hearts as a deposit, guaranteeing what is to come.”
2 Corinthians 4:6 (NIV)
For God, who said, “Let light shine out of the darkness,” made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of God’s glory displayed in the face of Christ.
