People who say such things show that they are looking for a country of their own. If they had been thinking of the country they had left, they would have had opportunity to return.
Hebrews 11:14,15
When I say that we grew up in Baltimore, it’s more than just a few words about a location. It means so much more than the “town of the big house.” It’s not just some place on a map. Not an accidental set of GPS numbers that flash on a phone. No, it meant so much more.
Life revolved about everything Baltimore. Our beloved major league teams; the Baltimore Orioles and the Baltimore Colts meant everything. Yes, I’m that old – I remember the Colts long before they were kidnapped to Indianapolis.
We were the home to the National Anthem and National Bohemian Beer. This is where the Chesapeake Bay was known as “The Land of Pleasant Living.” Growing up, we ate steamed crabs that were thrown on tables covered with old newspapers. We visited our grandparents who lived in certain parts of town depending on our ethnic heritage.
And for some reason, even with all these great traditions and more, there was this feeling of not being good enough. Being a little bit inferior. We lived in the shadow of the Nation’s Capital to the south. Philadelphia was much larger and just to the north. And then there was the hated New York city a little bit farther away.
Each of my four of my grandparents individually settled in Baltimore. They didn’t come as families or in some kind of group. They left their four small villages in Europe looking for a better life. Baltimore wasn’t their chosen final destination, but that’s where they settled. Started working. Got married. Grew a family while struggling through the Great Depression.
No one from either side of my family ever moved away from Baltimore. Ever. Not a single aunt or uncle left Baltimore for a better job. A better life. This made family reunions easier, but larger. My Polish grandmother had 18 kids while my mom’s mom had an even dozen on the Italian side. At one family Christmas party, I counted around 125 people for my dad’s side of the family. And since we met in the “cozy” house of my Aunt Lil and Uncle Walt, people came and left in shifts.
With this background, you can understand why people shook their heads when I announced that Mary Ann, our first child, and I were leaving Baltimore. It wasn’t like we were going to the other side of the world or anything. We were moving 72 miles due north on Interstate 95 to Wilmington, Delaware.
But it was a shock. Something unexpected. Something they couldn’t understand. No one in the family had ever done anything like this. What made us think that we could do it? Why would we leave all this for the unknown? For Delaware of all places.
But the biggest, the most disastrous problem of them all wasn’t that anyone was going to miss me. They’d known me all of my life, and they already forgot my name. And why? Because our daughter was the first grandchild for my in-laws and the first granddaughter for my parents. Remember this, we’re all afterthoughts in light of grandchildren.
And like Abraham and Sarah, we left the familiar and went to a place where we didn’t know anyone. Didn’t know where to buy groceries. Where the movies were. Couldn’t just drop off a grandchild into the loving arms of our parents who were always willing to step in at a moment’s notice.
You have to give Abraham and Sarah a lot of credit. They left home once. They didn’t have any false starts when it came to laving home. They didn’t look back. They kept moving forward. But they didn’t have a target on a map. They didn’t know exactly where they were going. They went forward one step at a time. One day at a time.
Think about this for a minute: how do we keep going forward when there’s no finish line? What keeps us going towards a destination that we can’t quite put our finger on? How can we continue putting one foot in front of the other? Why keep going when we’re not really sure where the end is?
I’ll tell you how. It’s faith. Faith in God and he’s exactly who he says he is. Faith that he’s with us. Faith that he’s with us. Faith that he’s taking care of us. Faith that he will provide for us. Faith that he’ll show us where to turn as we walk day by day with him.
Faith isn’t “believing what no one in their right mind would believe[1].” Faith actually has very little to do with what’s happening or going to happen. Faith also doesn’t focus on the when.
When you get down to it, faith is about a who. Faith looks forward and says there’s a someone who’s in charge. It’s not about an accident, but about someone with a good plan and purpose for us. And since that who is good, then we can look forward in with hope. Hope only comes through a who that we can depend on. That we can trust. That we can run to for forgiveness. That who is Jesus.
Noodling Questions
What are three things that make you feel like you’re not good enough. Why?
How is moving so disrupting to our lives and emotions?
Why is it important to focus on the who God is?
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