Reflection Questions: Travelers: By Faith: Prayers and Poetry

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Reflection Questions

1. Do you desire roots or mobility in your living circumstances? Why?

2. What do you consider to be the advantages/disadvantages of each?

3. How does your choice influence your personal relationships?

4. What promise from the Lord do you cling to at all times?

     

Share: In what circumstance have you most felt to be a stranger? How did you handle the situation?

Travelers: By Faith: Prayers and Poetry

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Hebrews 11:13, “All of these died in faith without having received the promises, but from a distance they saw and greeted them. They confessed that they were strangers and foreigners on the earth.”

Travelers

To be a stranger for a brief day’s excursion, or a short trip, can be exciting and intriguing. It’s fun to be introduced to new tastes and smells and locale. It’s a short step out of familiar that offers a new perspective. We get to be a little anonymous. And if anything happens that jars us, we know we will be home in a few hours or a few days and it’s not a critical matter.

But to be a stranger in a long term everyday setting requires a whole different outlook. For some it is still an adventure to be embraced, and yet for others it has the potential to weary heart and soul into survival mode in order to simply endure.

Always risking miscommunication, or worse insult. Surface relationships because no one really trusts each other. The wearisome continually packing and unpacking goods and feelings, getting lost, feeling alone and isolated.  And sometimes all within your own family who holds a different viewpoint.

Yet when we cling only to stability of location or mind or heart we risk stagnation. Our comfort criterion turns into a cage. We protect ourselves from the unknown wilderness and miss out on the beauty in the distance.

When we hold onto Jesus’ hand we have both: the security of being completely known and the promises of the unknown before us. We travel lighter.

Lord, thank you for Your blessing of keeping us as strangers, so that we are always prepared to travel as You call. Even if it’s just across the street.

Your thoughts,

Faith Seeds: Prayers and Poetry

Strangers

To travel to a foreign land

is not always easy when

lack of adventure or

fear of change creates

tremors through our

clattering bones,

internal winds blowing

storm scent into veins.

Look up to catch a

glimpse—sheer beauty

above the broiling clouds;

a sigh, a longing

stretch out towards

promises,

take first step.

Faith Seeds: Prayers and Poetry

Hebrews 11:13, “All of these died in faith without having received the promises, but from a distance they saw and greeted them. They confessed that they were strangers and foreigners on the earth."

To be a stranger for a brief day’s excursion, or a short trip, can be exciting and intriguing. It’s fun to be introduced to new tastes and smells and locale. It’s a short step out of familiar that offers a new perspective. We get to be a little anonymous. And if anything happens that jars us, we know we will be home in a few hours or a few days and it’s not a critical matter.

But to be a stranger in a long term everyday setting requires a whole different outlook. For some it is still an adventure to be embraced, and yet for others it has the potential to weary heart and soul into survival mode in order to simply endure.

Always risking miscommunication, or worse insult. Surface relationships because no one really trusts each other. The wearisome continually packing and unpacking goods and feelings, getting lost, feeling alone and isolated.  And sometimes all within your own family who holds a different viewpoint.

Yet when we cling only to stability of location or mind or heart we risk stagnation. Our comfort criterion turns into a cage. We protect ourselves from the unknown wilderness and miss out on the beauty in the distance.

When we hold onto Jesus’ hand we have both: the security of being completely known and the promises of the unknown before us. We travel lighter.

Lord, thank you for Your blessing of keeping us as strangers, so that we are always prepared to travel as You call. Even if it’s just across the street.

Psalm of Worship: Psalm 136:16

“To Him who led His people through the wilderness,

For His lovingkindness is everlasting;”

Kingdom Manna

Hour

Matthew 8:11, I tell you, many will come from east and west and will eat with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven,

Strangers were not unknown or unwelcome in Israel. Hospitality was universal in the middle east. Caution was not ignored. Often travelers arrived with letters of introduction from previous hosts verifying their guests. When Abraham opened his door to strangers, he made angels welcome.

But this comment is a concern to the listeners. Abraham, Isaac and Jacob held the promises of God to His people. To Israel. Promises of land, inheritance, Messiah. A past and a future concentrated in God’s blessings.

Security shaken. Who are the others? If remnants of the lost tribes-joy! If foreigners, unbelievers-dismay. How could the blessings be so tarnished? What right did these others have to God’s table?

By invitation.

“So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are citizens with the saints, and also members of the household of God,…” Welcomed.

By grace. By faith. Each of us included. Lord, let me never forget that once I stood as an alien, a foreigner at Your door. And may I extend a warm hand of reconciliation to each stranger that tentatively comes to Your house.

Psalm of Worship: Psalm 23:5

You prepare a table before me

in the presence of my enemies;

you anoint my head with oil;

my cup overflows.