“By faith he went to live in the land of promise, as in a foreign land, living in tents with Isaac and Jacob, heirs with him of the same promise.” (Hebrews 11:9). There is within all of us a natural desire to settle down. The older I get, the less I like to move. There is a certain rootlessness, restlessness, and emptiness about our lives. Augustine said, "O Lord Thou hast made us for Thyself and our hearts are restless until they find rest in Thee". It is written that Abraham lived in tents. I know many people who like to camp on vacation, but I don’t know anyone who voluntarily lives in a tent as a permanent residence. Tents speak of impermanence, of the possibility of moving on at any moment, or of the fact that you live on land you do not personally own.
Such was the case for Abraham.
He didn’t own anything in the
Promised Land. God had promised to give him the land; yet he lived like a
stranger in a foreign country. If you don’t own the land, you can’t build a
permanent dwelling there.God had promised the land . . . but in the meantime he had to
scratch out an existence while living in tents. Hundreds of years would
pass before the promise was completely fulfilled. Abraham never saw it happen.
Neither did Isaac or Jacob. Still, Abraham was a man of great faith who
obeyed the Lord and walked with Him.
Despite the fact that Abraham
demonstrated a great sense of Obedience, when he took his son Isaac for
sacrifice, he did not in his lifetime receive all that Lord had promised him.
God’s timetable is not the same as ours. He’s not in a big hurry as we
are. God works across the generations to accomplish his purposes;
Abraham’s life
is the ultimate key to the life of faith. “For he was looking forward to the city that has
foundations, whose designer and builder is God.” (Hebrews
11:10). As I have mediated on this verse, it hit me that
there is a certain amount of disappointment built into the life of faith. We
may think that if we follow God’s call, everything will work out and we will be
happy all the time. One of Robert Frost’s most famous poems captures this
truth in powerful images:
Nature’s first green is
gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf’s a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf’s a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.
“Nothing gold can stay.” How true this
is. We live, we die, we buy a house, we sell a house, and someone moves in
where we once lived. We take a job, we leave a job, someone else takes the job
we used to have..
One part of the life of faith is the fact
that we never reach full satisfaction in this life. “Ah, but a man’s
reach should exceed his grasp, or what’s a heaven for?” said Robert Browning.
Abraham looked for a city with foundations—that is, for a “city,” not a
lonely spot in the desert. He wanted to live in a place filled with other
people. He also looked for a city with “foundations,” a place with
security and permanence that could not be found in a tent. That meant he was
looking for a city designed and built by God., because all earthly cities
eventually crumble to dust.
I have been blessed to have
visited several times the ruins of the ancient city of Jericho. When most
people think of Jericho, they think of the city whose walls came tumbling down
in the days of Joshua, but that is only one Jericho. Archaeologists have discovered layers of Jericho, one after another, the city
having been built, destroyed, and rebuilt across the centuries. The same is
true of Jerusalem. When you visit Old Jerusalem, you aren’t exactly “walking
where Jesus walked.” You are actually walking thirty to seventy-five feet above where Jesus walked. According to one
source, Jerusalem has been destroyed and rebuilt at least forty-seven times in
the last 3,500 years.
This is the way of all earthly cities.
Nothing built by man lasts forever.
Augustine said, " Anything that is built by man will be destroyed by man... any
thing built by the Lord no one can destroy." No wonder Abraham
was looking for a city built and designed by God. Revelation 21 describes
that city as “the new Jerusalem, coming
down out of heaven from God” (v. 2).
In his vision John saw a city of breathtaking beauty, shining with the glory of
God, “its radiance like a most rare
jewel, like a jasper, clear as crystal” (v. 11). Christians have always looked to
the New Jerusalem as the final abode for the people of God, the place where we
will spend eternity together in the presence of the Lord. Heaven is a
city. It’s a real place filled
with real people. That’s the city Abraham was looking for when he left Ur of
the Chaldees. The Lord has promised to His own the Eternal City. This promise
is sure and certain. Because of this sure and certain promise in and through
Jesus, we live with confidence and serve Him with zeal and joy here and
now.
In Christ,
Brown
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