Down the street from where we studied Arabic, my friend and I stepped into a sandwich shop. It was our first week living in Africa and in the matters of language and culture, I functioned like a two year old. I rattled off my order for a tobouna shwarma (shwarma sandwich on a round bread) and a soda and paid the equivalent of $3 for the entire meal. I accepted the receipt and we stepped back to the wall to await our order.
None of the employees began preparing the food. The workers began to crack smiles and laugh with one another. Finally, someone told us that we needed to give our receipt to another employee behind the sandwich bar to start our order. Pink with embarrassment, we handed them over. This was not my last “dumb American” moment.
Being a foreigner means you stand out. You don’t talk the same. You don’t look the same. You view the world a little differently. If you follow Jesus, you too are a foreigner in this world.
“Beloved, I urge you as sojourners and exiles to abstain from the passions of the flesh, which wage war against your soul.” 1 Peter 2:11
Peter addresses the church as sojourners (someone passing through) and exiles (people driven from their homeland). It is difficult to grasp that you’re a foreigner when life is comfortable, normal. On the other end of the spectrum, suffering and brokenness in our lives lead us to cry, “This can’t be all there is!”. The word of God makes it clear that our citizenship lies elsewhere.
“But our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body, by the power that enables him even to subject all things to himself.” Philippians 3:20-21
How does being a sojourner affect how we live? If you truly live as a sojourner and exile, your life will look different than those in the world.
Time and Money
As sojourners, we don’t spend our lives scrabbling for possessions, comfort, safety, and experiences for happiness. Christ gives us fullness of joy here and now through the Holy Spirit, but this life is not the end. In our true home, there will be no more sin, no more toil, no more tears. Striving will cease and we will be wholly perfect, body and soul. We will be with God! Marantha! We lose affection for the world and its pleasures when we remember that we’re just passing through.
Loving our neighbors
Jesus said that loving our neighbors as ourselves is God’s second greatest commandment (Matt. 22:39). It’s tempting to focus on our own lives, building personal, efficient, comfortable castles. However God doesn’t want us to hunker down until our time on earth is over. In the Gospels we see Christ’s example of going out and loving people with his time, abilities, and giftings. In the end, he sacrificed himself for us while we were still sinners (Rom. 5:8). As sojourners, we know our time is limited. We love fully with our hearts wide open, giving freely and sharing the good news that gives us hope at every opportunity.
Family
Our families are a gift from God. The Bible says that a man shall leave his mother and father to marry (Eph. 5:31), that a husband and wife should live in sacrificial love for one another (Eph. 5:22-33), and if the Lord gives children (biological or otherwise), we are to raise them up in the ways of the Lord (Eph. 6:4). However, families aren’t ultimate things. They are made of eternal souls, but we are not eternal units (contrary to what the LDS church teaches). There is no marriage in heaven (Matt. 22:30) and the only mention of sons and daughters in heaven are those of God. The only eternal unit is the Church (Eph. 5:25-27, Rev. 19:6-9).
By no means does this give us permission to neglect our families! God provides the framework for how we should function in our families (see above), and even says a man who doesn’t provide for his family is worse than an unbeliever (1 Tim. 5:8)! However, as we place our hope, let it not be in picture perfect families. May it be firmly be planted in the saving work of Christ that will one day deliver us to our true home, with God and our global family, the Church.
Until then…
Fellow sojourner, let’s run together this race set before us (Heb. 12:1-2), not merely as residents of our cities, counties, states, countries, or continents, but as daughters of God and citizens of heaven, with eyes set only and fully on him.
Kristi P. Powell 