Called to Be a Pilgrim, Not to Belong Here

I'm a missionary in a developing country, perpetually caught between worlds. This verse about Abraham looking forward to a city suggests that faith creates a kind of permanent homesickness in this world, an orientation toward something better that hasn't yet arrived.

That's both beautiful and difficult. I have a home in the States I don't fully belong to anymore because I've been transformed by living here. I have a life here I love, but I know it's not my ultimate home. I exist in the tension between two places, fully at home in neither.

But Paul suggests that's actually the posture of faith. Not settling down as if this world is your final destination, but moving through it as a pilgrim, as someone oriented toward something beyond. That orientation prevents me from becoming too comfortable with injustice, too satisfied with broken systems, too at peace with how things are. The homesickness keeps calling me toward the kingdom that's still coming.