SCRIPTURE: Hebrews 11:14-16 NIV People who say such things show that they are looking for a country of their own. If they had been thinking of the country they had left, they would have had opportunity to return. Instead, they were longing for a better country—a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them.

THOUGHT: If you feel like a stranger and foreigner these days, you aren’t alone. I sometimes feel like the fabled Rip Van Winkle, who goes to sleep and wakes up 20 years later, completely bewildered. The good news – if I allow it to drift past my fear and distress – is that not recognizing the world means I am looking for a country “of my own,” one I do recognize; one that feels like home, where order and beauty intertwine, and justice is so prevalent it doesn’t need a name. All the melodies that haunt me, the ones I can’t quite catch, belong to that country.

I could go backwards, the writer of Hebrews says – there is an opportunity to return. To tune my radio, TV, computer, cell, or GPS to the old places I recognized and respond to a lesser song. But my heart wants to press on for the country I am longing for and have been all my life – even when I didn’t recognize it as such.

SONG: Heaven Song https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8PsgGW5N1fs

PRAYER: To see the city you have prepared is, and has always been, the deepest longing of my heart. Maybe I was looking for something else that would satisfy, but I was always wrong.