1 Chronicles 29:14-15 — But who am I, and what is my people, that we should be able to offer so willingly after this sort? for all things come of thee, and of thine own have we given thee. For we are strangers before thee, and sojourners, as were all our fathers: our days on the earth are as a shadow, and there is none abiding.

I am far from home. I have a longing for home, a home that I have never seen.

Unlike many people, I have no home town to which I long to return. Stu Weber talks about the idea of hometown in his book “Infinite Impact”. Though a fair part of my childhood and youth was spent in one town, we had no legacy, no heritage, no kin. It is a good town, I’m sure, but it was not good for us, and it is not home for me.
Once I left that town for college I did not go back. I lived in a few places until I came to Naples with Myra. This is as near to a home town that I will ever have. I have lived here longest. There are more people here that I care about than anywhere else. I have come to know a Lord and Savior, and here I have come to know where my home is.

In his wonderful prayer for the dedication of the temple, David declares his knowledge that, no matter where we live, we are in transit. We have no hope, no future, no substance except as we are His people.

I try to love all parts of the Bible equally, but I cannot deny that I love some of the people in it more than others. Peter is one of my heroes. He understands the same truth. When he addresses his first letter to the chosen ones, living for a time scattered in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia his words reflect the ideas of God’s providence both in the scattering and the transitory nature of their present accommodations. Later in the same letter he qualifies the context of their pilgrimage: “I beseech you as strangers and pilgrims, abstain from fleshly lusts, which war against the soul; having your conversation honest among the Gentiles:” It is not just as Jews that they are scattered, but as Christians. And as Christians we are all strangers and pilgrims.

It’s an odd business this pilgrimage. From time to time we meet someone and recognize another pilgrim. From time to quiet time we catch an echo of something from another place. And some, like me, are blessed with a fellow pilgrim — “Two are better than one; because they have a good reward for their labor. For if they fall, the one will lift up his fellow:” — but we know we are on a journey to another place, far away.

I am far from home. I have a desire to depart, and to be with Christ.