The Stranger Can See Through Different Eyes

 O my God, shine Your light and truth
    to help me see clearly,

To lead me to Your holy mountain,

    to Your home.

 (Psalm 43:3, The Voice) 

 

 After Methuselah was born, 

Enoch lived in a close relationship with God 

for 300 more years; 

he also had other sons and daughters. 

He lived to be 365 years old, 

but Enoch had such a close and intimate 

relationship with God 

that one day he just vanished

—God took him. 

(Genesis 5:22-24, The Voice)

 

If they were homesick for the old country, 

they could have gone back any time they wanted. 

But they were after a far better country than that

—heaven country. 

You can see why God is so proud of them, 

and has a City waiting for them. 

(Hebrews 11:15-16, The Message) 

 

This month's notes are on the subject of the call to a deeper life. 

One dynamic of that call is the sense that where we really belong is somewhere else, that we have heard something inside us calling us to, 'Come away.' We belong to a different Kingdom: our home is another country. It is often like this: 

'Follow me.'

'Yes, Lord, I'll follow you ... But Lord ...'

'Yes?'

'Where to? Where will I be going?'

'With me.'

From time to time the sense of alienation from everything around us may be strong, the sense of being a stranger, someone on a journey; but the stranger can see things through different eyes from those of people who live in that one place all the time. 

This world is not my home ...

(Northumbria, Aidan readings, Dec. 1)