Do not pass Go, do not collect your thoughts.

I SHOULD be working on NavWest at the moment seeing as how I need it completed in 14 hours, but I feel like so many other things are flying through my head right now I just need to get them out.

I feel like in the past few days I've been spoken to pretty clearly by God about something, but I'm not sure what that means! And while I have many things I need to wrap up and do, I wanted to share with you something that's been rattling around in my head today.

Hebrews 11 is one of my top ten favorite chapters of the Bible. I love how so many people are acclaimed for their faith (even though at times they demonstrated faithlessness.) For the past 4 weeks, I've been going through Faith, Hope, and Love in an individual study as well as one-on-one in discipleship with a student. I love the picture we have from Hebrews 6:19 where, "We have this hope as an anchor for the soul, firm and secure..."

But faith. If hope is an anchor, what I view as immovable, future seeking towards our hope in heaven, faith is needed every instant. Faith is being sure of what we hope for and trusting God's characteristics above all else.

⁸ 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. ⁹ 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. ¹⁰ For he was looking forward to the city with foundations, whose architect and builder is God.

¹³ All these people were still living by faith when they died. They did not receive the things promised; they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance. And they admitted that they were aliens and strangers on earth. ¹⁴ People who say such things show that they are looking for a country of their own. ¹⁵ If they had been thinking of the country they had left, they would have had opportunity to return. ¹⁶ Instead, they were longing for a better country—a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them. Hebrews 11:8-10, 13-16

So this is a bit of what is bouncing around in my head.

Abraham lived in a tent.

He didn't posses land of his own and wasn't looking for a country of his own, but looked forward to eternal lodging. I like verse 15 because when I think about the places I left, I can be tempted to go back. Not in a bad way per say, but wishing God works the same way here in Long Beach as He did before, or thinking things would be different had I gone a different way.

I want to long for my heavenly country. I want to be more than fine living in a tent on foreign land. I want to see the promises of God, even if that means at times from a distance. I want my anchor to be grounded and my trust grown.