If we are to live God glorifying lives, in peace with contentment, we must learn to grasp the fact that God the Father has put us here as a stranger, a pilgrim to fight in a battle. Think of daily life as a long road trip. When driving across the country, traveling has its rewards and its trials. The weather can quickly change for the worse. Mile after mile, the view is never quite the same. Sometimes good food is hard to find, and it’s never home-cooking. Whenever I travel, I always look forward to being home in my own bed. The people we encounter are never predictable, even when staying with family or friends.

Traveling from here to eternity is metaphorically the same experience. The circumstances of our lives are changing continuously. There is always uncertainty as to what comes next. All the planning and scheduling on our part does not change that reality. Our ultimate destination is Heaven. We are just travelers, and our home is another world.

If we live in the United States, God has blessed us with more pleasure and comfort in the journey than millions around the world. That’s a good thing, but there is a greater danger that can tempt and entice us with desires that can lead us astray. Peter gives us a critical warning as he tells his readers to live a righteous life in a hostile world. “Beloved, I urge you as aliens and strangers to abstain from fleshly lusts which wage war against the soul” (1 Peter 2:11). To have an impact on the world for God’s purpose, believers must be disciplined and avoid the desires of the fallen nature. “Fleshly lusts” are more than sexual temptations, and very dangerous because they “war against the soul.” “‘War,’ i.e. to carry on a military campaign. Fleshly lusts are personified as if they were an army of rebels or guerrillas who incessantly search out and try to destroy the Christian’s joy, peace and usefulness” (John MacAthur, a well-known pastor/Bible teacher who recently finished his journey and is finally Home.)

Peter further instructs us to keep our “behavior excellent among the Gentiles” (vs. 12). “The Greek word for ‘excellent’ is rich in meaning and implies the purest, highest, noblest kind of goodness. It means ‘lovely,’ ‘winsome,’ ‘gracious,’ ‘noble,’ and ‘honorable’” (John MacArthur). Non-believers don’t read the Bible, they “read” us. As we live out our lives here on earth, we have the opportunity present the Truth and in doing so, “glorify God in the day of visitation” (v. 12). If the non-believer responds with saving faith, they will glorify God “because he remembers the testimony of believers he had observed. Those who don’t believe will experience the visitation of His wrath in the final judgment” (John MacArthur).

Certainty is a myth on our journey Home. None of us knows exactly what is ahead of us. Yet, I can assure you it won’t be easy. However, if we lift our eyes up to our Lord and Savior, as the song “Turn your eyes upon Jesus” suggests, there is peace and contentment to be found. The song says that when we turn our eyes to Jesus the things of earth grow dim. Maybe it’s stress, worry, busyness, loneliness, boredom, discouragement, despair, or illness. Whatever these “things” are, they grow strangely dim as we look to Jesus.

The song, “O Soul, Are You Weary and Troubled?” was written in 1918 by Helen H. Lemmel. During her ninety-eight years, she wrote more than five hundred hymns, poems, and a children’s book. The song was inspired by a tract she read containing these words: “So turn your eyes upon Him, look full into His face and you will find the things of earth will acquire a strange new dimness.” The chorus of the song reminds us that as we look at all that Christ has done for us, the things of earth truly will grow dim.

O soul, are you weary and troubled?
No light in the darkness you see?
There’s a light for a look at the Savior,
And a life more abundant and free!

His word shall not fail you – He promised;
Believe Him, and all will be well:
Then go to a world that is dying,
His perfect salvation to tell!

Chorus: Turn your eyes upon Jesus,
Look full in His wonderful face,
And the things of earth will grow strangely dim,
In the light of His glory and grace.

I agree with Paul, “We are of good courage, I say, and prefer rather to be absent from the body and to be at home with the Lord” (2 Cor. 5:8). We can hardly imagine the glory and the beauty in the presence of our Lord and Savior that is to come. Praise His name!