Last month my family was able to purchase and move into a home here in Birmingham. It was a sweet answer to months of seeking and prayer for which we are deeply grateful. Instead of merely living in Birmingham, we became stable residents, not temporary visitors. Beyond providing relief to the temporary conditions of a furnished apartment, the move shifted our sense of place. Our furniture and belongings finally arrived from Florida, and we have a permanent address. Whew!
My family is starting to feel the normalcy of living in Birmingham among “Birminghamians” (or is it “Birminghamsters”?). It’s satisfying to have a place to call home and to sense the rest that comes from putting a stake in the ground and saying “I am home.” There’s something especially comforting about “arriving.” The solid security in your particular time and place, be it a move, travel, career, or membership – it signifies belonging and stability.
While all of us desire the safety and security of permanence, we are simultaneously aware of a deep longing for an eternal dwelling. Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 5:1, “For we know that if the tent that is our earthly home is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.” The promise from God is that our present condition, as permanent as it seems, is actually temporal. And there is an eternal and lasting place that will one day be ours by faith. God’s people were constantly on the move under Moses’ leadership before entering into the Land of Promise on the other side of the Jordan. So too do we as Christ’s own people have a permanent dwelling place in the full and complete glory of God at the last day. Our ultimate hope is not in the changing and vulnerable habitations of this present temporal life, but in the lasting security of God’s future promise in the gospel of Christ. As Paul puts it in Philippians 3:20,”Our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body.”
– Adam
For we know that if the tent that is our earthly home is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.
– 2 Corinthians 5:1