When you awake in the morning, view the world as exile.
You are a nomad. A pilgrim. This is not your home. You are
on a journey. You are going somewhere. But you can’t be there yet. You have
been exiled in this land, and forced to live out years upon years in this land.
It’s a strange land. It’s different than what you know. You are familiar with love, joy, and peace, but this world is rife with hate, depression, and
conflict. And yet you cannot simply escape from this world. You must live in it. And while you live in it, you know it is best to marry, have children, work, and enable this land to prosper as much as possible because in its prospering, you will receive benefit. To die would release you from exile, this you know; and yet to remain is to participate in mother-land in a way you cannot do once dead: you can
awaken others to their true home.
The people that you talk with, walk with, eat with, laugh
with—they have no desire to leave. This is all they know. Their family is here.
Their comforts are here. Sure, it has problems, but it is home.
Sometimes you will want to settle down. You will be tempted
and teased to set up camp and build something lasting. You will invest in the things around you so that your time is comfortable. You will attach yourselves
to them because you think that doing so will give you dual-citizenship,maintaining the benefits of your home while adding the pleasures of a new home.
But this is not your home.
You are in bondage in a foreign country. You are a
prisoner-of-war.
Sometimes you forget that a war wages around you. You know
that someday the war general will come and rescue you, but that day is not
today, at least… maybe. The natives around you speak a language you hardly
know: language of ridicule and mockery; language of hate and subjectivism. They
mistreat you. Sometimes to your face and sometimes off-handedly just within
ear-reach. Sometimes you pretend to act like them and for a while they believe
it, but they ridicule your friends and family; and eventually they find out—you are not one of them. You are one of the others.
Your national anthem, the song of your home is the song of the lamb and the redeemed.
You champion the song of the lamb who was slain for he is holy. But your words are senseless to those around you, confusing and
illogical. A slain lamb means nothing in this country, nothing but meat to eat.
And yet you know something deeper, something truer. In your country, the slain lamb is a lion, and in your country the slain lamb means life infinite and eternal—full of joy and feasts. At times you wonder how you can sing the song of salvation in this foreign land. So at times, your song turns to one of war and
vindication—at times you champion the song of Lion who will rescue you and
bring you home on wings like eagles. Your songs give you courage as often as
you hum them or belt them out for all to hear.
You are an exile. Destined to live years in this place.
You are an exile, and this is not your home.
You are an exile, and you wander the earth craving family… but
what’s more
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