Forward Movement is an official, non-profit agency of the Episcopal Church whose mission is to create compelling content for Christian living. Since 1935 we have published the quarterly devotional Forward Day by Day, as well as pamphlets, booklets, and books that encourage and nourish people in their lives of prayer and faith.
TUESDAY, January 31
Hebrews 11:13-22. They confessed that they were strangers and foreigners on the earth, for people who speak in this way make it clear that they are seeking a homeland.
We all long for a homeland. Ideally, home is a place where we can be ourselves, where we are safe. The author of the Letter to the Hebrews is still speaking here about our ancestors in faith, saying that they died as strangers and foreigners, still seeking a homeland.
This is a theme throughout the Bible. God’s people are often on the move, away from home: they are enslaved in Egypt; they wander in the desert. After a few hundred years rooted in one place during the monarchy, they are exiled to Babylon. Jesus himself was always on the move.
Some would say that, as Christians, we are by nature an exiled people. We live as citizens of the kingdom of God, made manifest in Jesus, but not yet fully come. We are in this world but not of this world. If we sometimes feel a little uncomfortable or left out, it is probably a sign that we are living as we should be.
Writer Nellie Morton said, “The journey is home.” Although we are on a journey, sometimes feeling like strangers in a strange land, we are at home when we are with God.
PRAY for the Diocese of the Anglican Parishes of the Central Interior (British Columbia and the Yukon, Canada)
Ps 61, 62 * 68: 1-20(21-23)24-36; Genesis 21:1-21; John 6:41-51
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“Now we know that if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, an eternal house in heaven, not built by human hands.“
2 Corinthians 5:1 New International Version (©1984)
We start planting this idea in children as they memorize the 23rd Psalm, and trust they will “dwell in the house of the Lord forever.”
The Southern Gospel lively song “Looking for a City” is sung with smiles, gusto, a bright tempo, and confident hope :
1. Here among the shadows in a lonely land,
We're a band of pilgrims on the move;
Burdened down with sorrows, shunned on every hand,
Looking for a city built above.
Refrain:
Looking for a city, where we'll never die,
There the sainted millions, never say good-bye,
There we'll meet our Savior, and our loved ones too,
Come O Holy Spirit, all our hopes renew!