Day 42: Welcoming the Stranger, Including Yourself
/Matthew 25:35 - I was a stranger and you welcomed me.
Welcoming strangers is a concept that is clearly Biblical, and also a little set-aside right now as we continue through the corona. When I read this devotion in Pauses for Lent, I actually thought more of myself as a stranger in my own life. Fives months ago my family and I changed e.v.e.r.y.t.h.i.n.g. about our lives other than the fact that we’re all still together. We changed our home, our location, our geographic region, our daughter’s schooling, my job, G’s job. All the majors: changed. And though we came “home” to where we grew up, building up a life to comfortably live in takes time, so in a way we haven’t really come home.
It’s strange thinking about and attempting to make new friends in your old hometown.
It’s strange having your immediate family replace your friends, when for 15 years in 3 military towns your friends took the place of your family.
It’s strange figuring out the seasonal weather cycles you knew (and hated) every year for 21 years but after 15 (blessed) years in warmer climates you don’t remember how to dress during the months of March and April.
It’s strange belonging everywhere and belonging nowhere at the same time.
In Acts 17, Paul is preaching in Athens. He’s telling the audience not to be so concerned with their idols but rather to work their way toward the solid ground God offers:
“From one man he made all the nations, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he marked out their appointed times in history and the boundaries of their lands. God did this so that they would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from any one of us. ‘For in him we live and move and have our being.’ As some of your own poets have said, ‘We are his offspring.’
Sometimes I think we make an idol out of belonging. We search for it everywhere: in books, movies, tv shows, our spouse, our children, our friends, a dancefloor, a small group, a yoga studio, a music studio, in front of a piano, on a stage, in an office.
And in making an idol of belonging, we make the mistake of not asking God, where do I belong? where should I be/go? what should I do/see/say here?
Verse 26: he marked out [our] appointed times in history;
Verse 28: in Him we live and move and have our being.
The people in Athens belonged there; that was their home, but their hearts continued to search for belonging in and on and through all these other things, things of no eternal significance.
Our people and our jobs and our homes matter. But where we belong is in a space where our hearts are moving toward God. Where we belong is where we are. Where we belong is in his love, because, v. 28b: we are his offspring. Today, that’s all the belonging I need.
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Tell me about you: e-mail me & tell me about a time when you wanted to belong but just couldn’t find the space to do so.
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