Citizens of Another Country

I read an article, years ago, about an American filmmaker who decided to step away from a wildly successful film franchise that had been requiring him and his family to live abroad.

It stuck in my mind because of the tongue-in-cheek reasoning he gave for the surprising decision, “My kids were starting to speak in British accents.”

Sometimes, we just want to go home, don’t we?

Returning from a recent family vacation, I burst into tears at the airport, overcome with relief when I saw my sister’s van pulling into the pickup lane. It didn’t matter that I had had fun on this trip and that I was even looking forward to taking another one. In that moment, I was so tired, and all I wanted was my own bed. The smell of my own house. The feeling of not being “away.”

If Jesus is our king, and his kingdom is not of this world, then we live our lives as perpetual aliens. This should reassure us in some ways. The world so often feels cold and cruel and strange to us because it is. We were not made for this world. We were made for heaven. We were made to yearn for the face, the presence, the protection of our King.

But this understanding of ourselves as strangers in a foreign land should also be a caution to us.

We can’t get too comfortable here. We cannot become too wrapped up in the world and its temptations, its rewards, its comforts. We cannot start speaking in the language, the accent of our adopted homeland. Not if we ever want to return home and belong there.

Our King looks for our return.

©LPi