Hannah Edwards, illumineblog
I could not be more excited to have my good friend Hannah Edwards taking over the blog today. She’s got the biggest heart, a gift for writing, a laugh I’d recognize anywhere, and a permanent spot at our favorite hometown coffee shop☕️ Today she’s bringing wisdom on the eternal implications of home, so grab your coffee & notebook cause it’s gonna be good...
make yourself at home,
Liv
A Place of Your Own
To somebody who already belongs, the promise of a home doesn’t mean much. But to an orphan, an exile, or a foreigner, home is the dream.
Peter, one of Jesus’ closest friends, wrote a letter to a group of believers he called “elect exiles” (parepidemos--1 Peter 1:1). It’s an identity describing someone in a country that is not that person’s homeland, living among the natives of that place.
Becoming believers literally puts us into the shoes of exiles. We were once an integrated part of the unsaved world and its thought patterns, desires, and lifestyle choices; but that’s past tense now. That life is done. It’s gone. We’ve become ‘resident foreigners.’ With this in mind, Peter said (4:2-5) we are “to live for the rest of the time in the flesh no longer for human passions but for the will of God.” In other words, our lives should be a stark contrast to the lives of the people around us who don’t know Jesus (he explains some practical aspects of this in 1 Peter 4:3).
From 1 Peter, we get a very real sense of not belonging in the world: we are called to live differently--to live in such a way that results in the surprise and sometimes criticism of the people around us (1 Peter 4:3). And it’s hard, so hard, because we want to belong.
Jesus spoke these words to people who had left everything behind to follow Him:
“In my Father’s house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also.”
(John 14:2-3)
Pretty soon He was leaving. After that, life would only get harder, because the message Jesus’ followers carried with them was not a welcome one. They would not experience “home” in its most real sense here in this world. So Jesus looked them dead in the eye and gave them a promise they could hold onto: home is coming.
Peter was among the people Jesus spoke those words to. And now, in his letter, Peter was passing on the message. He didn’t tell the believers they weren’t home yet to make them feel trapped, discontent, or confined to a place where they didn’t belong. Instead, his message was one ricocheting hope, because life actually starts to make a whole lot of sense when we understand that we’re exiles.
But Not Orphans
As a kid, I had a weird obsession with orphans. I loved stories like Annie, Heidi, A Little Princess, and The Secret Garden. There was something about raggedy dresses, escaping mean orphanage ladies, and surviving on your own that fascinated me. I have a memory of my mom telling me I needed to brush my hair. “You look like an orphan,” she said accusingly, and I remember being perplexed that she made it sound like a bad thing. But as a child, I couldn’t grasp the real reality of no parents, no security, and no place of belonging. I didn’t know what it was like to be someone with nothing and no one.
When Jesus told His followers in John 14:18, “I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you,” He was making an incredible promise to them for this in-between time--after their salvation, but before reaching the home He was preparing for them. He was promising them the security of Himself, by means of the Holy Spirit, who would come to dwell in them:
“Jesus answered him, ‘If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him. ’” (John 14:23)
The word “home” in that verse means staying, dwelling, mansion, or residence. It’s the exact word used when Jesus said, “In my Father’s house are many rooms . . . I go to prepare a place for you” (Jn. 14:2-3). In other words, He’s making us a home (heaven), but in the meantime He’s also making us His home (the Holy Spirit, living in us).
The promise of the Holy Spirit, of God’s always-presence (Heb. 13:5), and of His role in supplying every need (Phil. 4:19) has incredible implications for us. It’s the promise that God will be our faithful security, provider, and Father. He Himself is our home.
Embracing Exiledom
I think the desire for home is God-designed--that He put it in us. But there is a danger in us trying to make our home on earth when we weren’t made for a home here.
And Peter’s desire was that the people he was writing to would embrace their identity as exiles and foreigners on earth. As exiles, it’s easy to forget our identity and to start to live like citizens. To begin to want, to expect, to hope that this earth will feel more like home to us than it does exile. To crave comfort, peace, and complete joy here, joining in the way of life of the people around us.
We are citizens of another country. But it’s confusing, isn’t it—because how should an exile live? In the world, but not of the world. What does that even mean?
How An Exile Lives
Thankfully, God clarifies some things about exiledom for us:
“These all died in faith, not having received the things promised, but having seen them and greeted them from afar, and h aving acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on
the earth. For people who speak thus make clear that they are seeking a homeland . . . . But as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for h e has prepared for them a city. ”
(Hebrews 11:13-14, 16)
These people were waiting for God to do what He had said, greeting His promises “from afar.” They acknowledged, or openly celebrated, that they were not at home on earth. And their desire, what they craved, was the home God was preparing for them.
Some of the believers mentioned by name in this chapter were Abraham, Moses, Jacob, Joseph, and David. Quite a few of the believers mentioned in Hebrews 11 didn’t even have a physical home for much of their lives. Abraham and Moses lived in tents for much of their lives, traveling often. David spent time running for his life from a king and living in a cave (but also experienced the flip side of living in a palace). Joseph was torn from his home by the people who were supposed to be part of it. These believers were familiar with wandering and not experiencing security or earth, but they were holding onto what God had promised them.
Like the believers before us, we are exiles. And like theirs, our home isn’t where we’ve come from--it’s where we’re going.
1. Make yourself at home away from home
Jeremiah 29 is notorious for its verse about God’s incredible plans for His people (vs. 11), but do you know anything else about this chapter? Just recently I learned its context. In my Bible, the heading of this chapter is “Jeremiah’s Letter to the Exiles.” Jeremiah was writing to leaders of the Jewish community that was exiled in Babylon and wishing for a day when they could go back home to Jerusalem.
Here’s the message from God that Jeremiah gave them:
“Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, to all the exiles whom I have sent into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon:
“Build houses and live in them; plant gardens and eat their produce.
Take wives and have sons and daughters; take wives for your sons, and give your daughters in marriage, that they may bear sons and daughters; multiply there, and do not decrease.
But seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare.”
(Jeremiah 29:5-7)
First of all, it says God sent them into exile there. Knowing that reality gave their exile a sense of purpose; He would not have sent them there without a reason. Essentially, then, they are given instructions to put down roots. Plant gardens. Build houses. Live in them. Make yourselves at
home. Get married and have kids. Be good citizens, and pray for the good of your city. Be a part of this community. Bless your Babylonian neighbors.
He doesn’t say, Pack your bags and hold your breath for when you can go home. Live in tents. Don’t form any ties to the community.
And I find that message so practical, because it tells me exiledom isn’t about living out of a suitcase. It’s about living out the reality that you are here with a different focus and purpose than the rest of the world around you.
2. Steward well what has been entrusted to you
In Luke 19, Jesus told a parable. It’s about a nobleman who was traveling to a faraway country, so first he called in ten servants and gave each of them money--not to spend on themselves, but to use to profit him. His instructions to these servants?
“Engage in business until I come” (vs. 13).
In other words, he expected them to invest what He had given them. It belonged to Him, but He entrusted it to them for a purpose. They were stewards of his money, but ultimately he owned it.
An exile is a steward, not an owner. What’s been entrusted to us actually doesn’t belong to us, and we are to be focused on that reality. We use what has been given to us for the desires and wishes of the King to whom all things belong.
If I view my money, possessions, time, and gifts as the tools of a steward (or as God’s money, possessions, time, and gifts), I can’t just use them for myself anymore.
I value them, but in a different way than I did before. I realize that they were crafted for a greater purpose than my own happiness, comforts, and success. And that reality, to be honest, makes them far more valuable and meaningful to me.
3. Be careful about what you love
But we still need to talk about a warning label on our lives. As exiles in a foreign land, our hearts are susceptible to falling in love with the wrong things. And God knows this.
One of the places where He warned us against this was in Deuteronomy, where He commanded His people not to make covenants with or intermarry with other nations. He even told them why:
“For they would turn away your sons from following me,
and serve other gods. . . . The LORD your God has chosen you to be a people for his treasured possession, out of all the people who are on the face of the earth.”
(Deuteronomy 7:4, 6)
King Solomon, although not an exile, exemplifies the detrimental consequences of loving the wrong things. It’s crazy, too, because Solomon was the wisest man to live. Actually, he was the same guy who said, “Keep your heart with all vigilance, for from it flow the springs of life” (Proverbs 4:23). He said that; he knew it. But he failed to protect his heart (1 Kings 11). Solomon went ahead and violated the direct command of God to not intermarry seven hundred times. God warned, “Surely they will turn away your heart after their gods” ( 1 Kings 11:2). The result was exactly what God said it would be: “And his wives turned away his heart” (11:3).
If we give our hearts, or our love, to the wrong things, no amount of wisdom will be enough to protect us. No matter what we know, what we love is what we will obey. When our hearts are hooked, we’ve already lost (1 John 2:16-17, 5:21).
God wants our hearts, our love, most of all.
4. Use transient things as conduits for eternal value
Everything that an exile is given becomes a tool for knowing Christ or else making Him known.
An exile knows this: temporal things have the capacity to matter eternally. And this reality changes everything.
Your house, job, and community are not simply transient things. Your coffee nook, your French press, your living room, your hobby, the painting on your wall, your car, and your Buffalo Chicken Dip all have something in common: capacity for eternal value.
They are things through which we can share grains of eternity. They are spaces for hospitality and intentional conversations and for the building of real relationships. They are tools for getting to places where we can serve or pour out of ourselves into meaningfulness and purposeful work and kingdom-building. They are connections and interest points that can bridge the gap to gospel conversations. Our communities are not just places and people to spend weekends having a good time with, but a field ripe for planting and harvesting seeds of truth, of the gospel—of who God is.
There are homesick people all around us. They are going about their lives, feeling that same homesick ache we do, but not knowing why it exists or how to fill it. As believers, all of us are walking through life with the promise of home inside of us, and not only that, but also with the One who made our hearts and now makes His home in them. We’re here to share these beautiful realities with them while the transient and the eternal collide.
That things that won’t last can matter forever—it’s a paradox, in a way. It’s a far deeper, and more beautiful aim than spending my money, time, and life on me could ever be. We live by faith—by believing and not by seeing (2 Corinthians 5:7), knowing that what God says is as real as anything we can see with our eyes.
There’s more where this came from! Hannah can be found at her blog, Illumine and on instagram @illumine_blog