Church history and Christian biography provide rich, deep wells into which believers can dip their spiritual buckets to find spiritual refreshment, encouragement, and inspiration. What privileged seats we have to be able to look on those who have preceded us! We get glimpses their growth in grace, watch them wind their way through this world according to the Word, and witness their enduring pursuit of heaven, often in the face of great adversity. Maybe most inspiring to us is the way in which so many truly lived as strangers and pilgrims on the earth while simultaneously sowing their lives into the soil of this earth. Many have followed in the train of those Old Testaments saints (Hebrews 11) who believed enduringly in the reality of spiritual and eternal things and who resisted the daily temptation to believe that this world offered them real promise. Our hearts rise to hear and heed Peter's challenge to live as strangers and pilgrims in such a way as to show forth the praises of Him who has called us out of darkness into His marvelous light.
Abraham calls himself a "stranger and a sojourner" in a land he believed God was going to give him. This is the first time he shows any real inclination to making a home on earth, and how slight it is -- only a field, some trees, and a cave in which he can bury his dead. Lord, show me that I must be a stranger unconcerned and connected with affairs below, "looking for a city" (Heb. 13:14). (Excerpt from Jim Elliot's first journal entry, January 17, 1948, based on his reading of Genesis 23).
