From Tourist to Sojourner --Lonely Living

I remember going back and forth on highway 400 every day in the spring of 2015. Every morning and every evening, back and forth in my black Honda Pilot. I was visiting my son in the NICU, and when spring turned to summer, I began to beg God. Why!? How much longer?

I distinctly remember God saying, "You are still coming to this hospital because I still have people for you to meet.

It wasn't about me. It's still not about me. It's taken me awhile to see this lesson resurfaced a decade later. When I ask now, "God how much longer? Will we live in an RV forever? Will we plant roots somewhere or keep sojourning?" I hear God say again, "You are still traveling because I still have people for you to meet and people for you to cover in prayer."

"We missed friends. We felt alone and alienated in every way. But God was transforming us from tourists to sojourners. I often wonder what Christians in the United States will need to leave behind in order to embrace the adventure God has before us. I wonder what God might be stripping away so we can cling, desperately and helplessly, only to him. How does the longing for power, privilege, and position freeze us in place? How do our financial resources, technological tools, and cultural arrogance insulate us from an honest encounter with God and with the world? What might it look like for us to travel lightly today?" (Tom Lin, Uncommon Ground pg 41)

While Tom Lin and his wife were missionaries in Mongolia (completely different from where we are living) His words correlated distinctly with my own emotions. Life-altering transitions are universally hard.. A new mom bringing her first baby home relates to an older grandmother moving into her first retirement home. Both live in different stages and places, yet they share a universal experience of the soul...learning to look ahead rather than long for the past.

How can we leave our insulated, controlled routine in order to find our deepest longing satisfied in God? We must be stripped. There's always a dismantling or stripping that happens when we encounter God.

Abram and Sarai had the same experience. "The Lord said to Abram, 'Go from your country and your kindred and your father's house to the land that I will show you.'" (Genesis 12:1)

Every adventure begins by leaving the familiar behind. But if we continue to cling to our familiar ways, we longingly look back like Lot's wife. We stiffen in fear or fall apart in the sands of uncertainty.

I have found myself in some of the most majestic and breathtaking places on Earth and still sensed a temptation to focus on a void. Lies creep into the mind and steal our joy...

If only everyone was getting along, then I could enjoy this.

If we had served others first, maybe I'd feel I deserved this.

If I had slept better or felt better today, then I'd be more apt to appreciate this.

If I could just have someone here that understands me then I'd really enjoy this.

Sadly, no matter how wonderful a place or situation, we will never feel fully satisfied apart from Christ. Until we let Him flood our soul, we will always be like Lot's poor wife, looking back yearning for something else.

We don't wear clothes in the shower because it weighs us down and hinders our cleanliness. We also can't embrace where God has us if we don't let Him strip us bare. But it's scary. It's hard to be that vulnerable, so we end up either dictating to God how we should receive gifts, try to earn gifts on our own merit, or mix a cocktail of various past gifts with the present ones, only to discover they don't blend well.

Our best option is to stop striving and surrender to the sojourning adventure. Enjoy Christ first, and everything else really does seem sweeter afterwards. Tourism feels fun for a short while, but it's taxing after a long while. Sojourning, on the other hand, provides purpose and peace. You are simultaneously always at home and never really home at all. This uncomfortable tension is sojourning. As a sojourner you encounter God more intimately than you could when you were just touring the world on your own.

None of us knows the next adventure. We may be back driving to that hospital tomorrow, but for now we ask: God grant us a willing spirit to sustain us and return to us the joy of our salvation (Psalm 51:12). Then we can be anywhere and have complete contentment.

God keeps stripping us so that we can be cleaner and freer sojourning for life.

~Carefully & Carelessly Sojourning