JUST PASSIN’ THROUGH

My growth as a Christian started when I was in the army in 1965, at the start of the View Nam war.  I learned a song that has stuck with me: “This world is not my home, I’m just a 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.”  The chorus went: “Oh Lord, you know I have no friend like You.  If heaven’s not my home then Lord what will I do.  The angels beckon me from heaven’s open door and I can’t feel at home in this world anymore.”  (Mary Reeves Davis © Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC).

It was easy for me to feel I wasn’t at home when I was in the army in Texas being trained for Viet Nam. That whole concept has stayed with me.  Now, 53 years later, I still feel like a pilgrim with no real home, spiritually and physically.  For the last 3 years Nancy and I have spent more time away from home than at home (I actually counted the days and its true).  We love being at our children’s’ homes and we love being at our Doylestown home.  Our children live spread out across the USA.  We enjoy whomever we are with, but we always miss the others.  And our own home is special to us.

Sometimes it feels like we are travelers here with no permanent place to settle down and have it all.  I think God wants us to feel that way because we won’t find what we are looking for in this world, no matter where we live.  We were created for heaven and won’t find our fulfillment until we are in God’s presence for all eternity.  Truly, this world is not our home.  Thank God for that!!!

Hebrews 11:13  All these dies in faith, without receiving the promises, but having seen them and having welcomed them from a distance, and having confessed that they were strangers and exiles on the earth.

1 Peter 2:11  Beloved, I urge you as aliens and strangers to abstain from fleshly lusts which wage war against the soul.

Do you get frustrated because this life and this world doesn’t meet all your deep needs?  Don’t be.  For the child of God this earthly existence will never be ‘home.’  Thank Him for your eternal home where you will truly and forever feel right at home!  Spend some time thinking and reading about heaven, your real home.

by Rev. Dr. Jerry Schmoyer, Christian Training Organization