Sailing home from a long passage has a few differences from earlier parts of the journey.  We are usually covering familiar waters (whatever got us there), we know what to expect (because it is our home waters most frequently sailed) and we anticipate what we will have in terms of comfort, provisions, safety, and fellowship upon arrival (because we are coming to our familiar home port).

Sailors are fond of quoting JRR Tolkien in Fellowship of the Ring by saying “Not all who wander are lost.”  While that sounds all adventurous and pirate-friendly, we all know that after some period of time away, we all long for home.  George Moore said that “A man searches the whole world and returns home to find it.”

While GPS has progressed, there can still be some wrinkles that require attention. Chart plotters cannot identify local hazards like crab pots or floating objects. AIS is necessary to identify other boats but only those properly equipped. At night-time, channel lights (aids to navigation) still offer welcome comfort beyond what we see on the screen, and it is especially comforting to see familiar lights from your own inlet or port.

As Christians, we know that however much we long for our temporary earthy home, it is ultimately only our eternal heavenly home that will satisfy. Jesus said: “my Kingdom is not of this world” (Jn 18:36), we will see His Kingdom if we are born again (Jn 3:3), and that “if I go and prepare a place for you” – a place that will be our eternal home – “I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also.” (John 14:3)

Later in Philippians 3:20-21 Paul writes “²⁰ But our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, ²¹ who will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body, by the power that enables him even to subject all things to himself.”

As CS Lewis famously said in Mere Christianity, “If I find in myself desires which nothing in this world can satisfy, the only logical explanation is that I was made for another world.”

So how should Christians live in this world knowing that our ultimate destination is eternity in God’s kingdom. To be quite honest, we typically don’t think too much about it and instead fill our time with day-to-day activities and building our lives here.  Our home on earth may be the ideal house brimming with life that makes it a home, or we might try to build a home in our jobs where our career gains us a legacy. Whatever it is, Jesus says it will not be eternal and, therefore, will not satisfy.

If we are aliens and sojourners here on Earth (1 Peter 2:11), how do we live in the interim? For starters, consider where we go for advice. Psalm 119:105 says, “Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path.” What does Scripture teach us about how to live in the interim?

One example might be found in Jeremiah’s advice to the Jewish exiles living in Babylon. The Jews were captured and deported from Jerusalem to live in the non-Jewish land of Babylon.   Jeremiah advice in 29:4-7 seems to apply to us living as exiles and sojourners in a land that is not our final home. “Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, to all the exiles whom I have sent into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon: ⁵ Build houses and live in them; plant gardens and eat their produce.⁶ Take wives and have sons and daughters; take wives for your sons, and give your daughters in marriage, that they may bear sons and daughters; multiply there, and do not decrease. ⁷ But seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare.

So as Christians living in this world, we must not remain in isolation waiting for our eternal home. Withdrawal from the culture is not the answer. We must engage with the culture, love the people around us wherever God has placed us, get involved in our community and promote, even daresay enjoy, where God has placed us. In doing that, we will be living our God’s design for us as ambassadors of the Gospel to the community He has given us.

“But now I am coming to you, and these things I speak in the world, that they may have my joy fulfilled in themselves…I do not ask that you take them out of the world, but that you keep them from the evil one. They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth. As you sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world.” (John 17:13, 15-18) The prayer of Jesus over us on the night of his arrest.