We certainly have no trouble thinking of Abraham that way, a man who left his home not knowing where God was going to take Him. His whole life was a pilgrimage, dwelling in tents as an alien in the very land that was promised to him. And the Israelites camped for forty years in the desert, waiting for the day they could cross the Jordan and inhabit the land God had prepared for His people. The early Christians, because of persecution, were constantly on the run, being scattered like seed among people who did not share their citizenship in heaven.

But somewhere along the line of our spiritual ancestry, we have dropped the baton. We are no longer pilgrims here; we have become permanent residents. Speaking of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the writer of Hebrews says, “all these died in faith, without receiving the promises, but having seem them and having welcomed them from a distance, and having confessed that they were strangers and exiles on the earth” (11:13. They never saw the fulfillment of the covenant, the mystery unfolded, the big picture revealed, but still they were pilgrims. How much more ought we, recipients of better promises, under a better covenant, be willing to be sojourners in this land because we know we’re going to a better country?

I offer these suggestions to helps us stay on the pilgrim’s pathway.

Find where you fit. It is just part of our nature to want to fit it, to blend in with our culture. No one wants to be a misfit, much less stay one. So when we feel the friction of rubbing up against our surroundings, we are all too quick to change ourselves instead of trying to change our world. We would rather fit in than get left out. But when you lose your identity as a pilgrim, you lose your identity as a Christian. The commonality behind the words sojourner, stranger, alien and exile is the fact that Christians don’t fit in where they live. We have no business trying to belong in a world that is not our home.

You’re either apart from the world or you’re a part of it. In making your choice, remember that Jesus said, “my kingdom is not of this world” (John 18:36). Where is your citizenship? Finding where you fit involves finding where you don’t fit.

Don’t be afraid to act like a foreigner. People who dress differently, talk differently, and act differently are going to be treated differently. Even the 1st Century Christians were not exempt from such abuse. Peter instructs these very people in his first epistle, a letter addressed to “to those who reside as aliens” (1:1), scattered throughout various regions of Asia Minor. Knowing of the pressures they were facing to conform to the crowd, the apostle wrote, “beloved, I urge you as aliens and strangers to abstain from fleshly lusts which war against the soul. Keep your behavior excellent among the Gentiles” (2:11-12). His solution was for them to keep doing what they’ve always been doing, to show the world where they belong. In so doing, even those who slander you might be influences by your good deeds to glorify God. Just because we’re passing through doesn’t mean we can pass up opportunities to show people the way home.

You prepare for the next world by living well in this world. Fleshly lusts have no place in the spiritual person, a pilgrim whose mind is somewhere else. Talking like a foreigner is no embarrassment to him whose true citizenship is in heaven. Dressing like a foreigner is no problem for a young lady who covets no attention for herself but wants peoples’ eyes to be focused on her Master in heaven. “Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God” (Heb. 11:16). Let us, then, not be ashamed to be called His pilgrims.

Keep looking to the lights of the city. The pilgrim’s journey will eventually come to an end. Those who spent their whole lives wandering, dwelling as strangers and exiles, will finally reach their home and have a city to call their own. Having suffered as misfits and outcasts, they will be at rest in a place where everyone fits in and everyone belongs. It is the city which has foundations that Abraham was looking for (Heb. 11:10), the inheritance Peter describes as being reserved (1 Pet. 1:4), the place that John says is made ready as a bride adorned for her husband (Rev. 21:2). These descriptions of the city of God ought to cause us to sing with great passion and feeling, “if heaven’s not my home, then Lord what will I do?”

There are times when the end of the pathway seems far away. But faith, as one writer said, “like a telescope, brings it within the range of vision.” For just as Sarah considered him faithful who had promised, we can believe that “this is the promise which He Himself made to us: eternal life” (1 John 2:25). And we need not even fear death itself, for it nothing more than the gate of admission into the city God has prepared for those who love Him.

But how can we look in faith to our journey’s end, when we never got started down the pilgrim’s pathway?