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Nebraska is a place that I have never called home.
It is a Great Plains state that I have experienced from time to time on my way to somewhere else.
The Nebraska locale that I happen to know best is a small town along Interstate 80 called North Platte. To date I’ve stopped in North Platte on three occasions.
Once I stopped there to fill my gas tank and stretch my legs – after which I kept right on driving.
Back in college I made a second visit, one that lasted a good deal longer. I was attending a retreat at a nearby camp when the North Platte River reached flood stage and began overflowing its banks. The students in our college group became a rescue squad, filling sandbags to keep the water from inundating the camp.
My wife-to-be was also part of that group, although at the time we weren’t even dating. I couldn’t help noticing, however, “There’s a woman who knows how to fill a sandbag” – something that I filed away for future consideration.
My third adventure in North Platte was entirely unplanned. Coming back from a high school mission trip that I had been leading in Colorado, one of our vans suddenly broke down – one mile from the North Platte exit.
A local mechanic diagnosed our problem and then got on his computer, only to discover that the one part required for the repair was available at just three sites west of the Mississippi River – in Texas, somewhere on the West coast, and in Wyoming.
While the mechanic graciously made a round trip to Wyoming with one of our adult leaders and then fixed our van, the remaining leaders of our trip were marooned in North Platte, Nebraska, with a group of tired and restless teenagers for 48 hours.
It was a dark chapter in youth ministry.
Perhaps you have been an actual resident of North Platte and loved it. To me, that Nebraska town is an illustration of how we all are compelled to spend time in places that are not our true home.
The New Testament book of I Peter says that those who follow Jesus are “aliens and strangers” in this world. This is not our ultimate place of residence.
Not everyone thinks this is good news.
All we have ever seen and known and experienced is in this world. This is where our ambitions and our passions and our hopes and our dreams are being played out. This is where we go to school, and take our vacations, and keep our bank accounts, and swipe our name badges to go through security in the lobby. Many of us are fundamentally committed to being this-world residents.
We might actually think it would be neat to run for mayor of North Platte.
Beyond all doubt, God is nuts about this world. He loves it. After all, God invented it. He superintends all of its details. God even chose to be born in the North Platte of ancient Israel – a dusty little town called Bethlehem – and invested at least three decades working, living, eating, laughing, teaching, traveling, and ultimately dying, all within about 100 miles.
But this is not home.
We might say that the world is North Platte. We’re here for a while. During that time, we are called to serve, just as we tried to help make things better by sandbagging a river. And while we are here, we are likely to experience a variety of breakdowns.
But no matter what, we must bear in mind that we’re always on our way somewhere else. We’re headed for our true destination.
The author of Hebrews tells us, “By faith Abraham, when called to go to a place he would later receive as his inheritance, obeyed and went, even though he did not know where he was going. By faith he made his home in the promised land like a stranger in a foreign country; he lived in tents, as did Isaac and Jacob, who were heirs with him of the same promise. For he was looking forward to the city with foundations, whose architect and builder is God” (11:8-10).
The reason we shouldn’t hang on to this world for dear life is that God is intent on giving us the fullness of dear life at the end of our here-and-now life. We’re on our way to “the city with foundations.”
Scripture tells us that our future is going to be new heavens and a new earth – our present world reborn and remade.
So, if you haven’t yet had the fortune of visiting Nebraska, just hang in there. It’s possible that we’ll all get to experience a redeemed version of it in the next world.
That will definitely be a sight to see.