Cancer Blog #37
By Brian Zimmerman
Begun on July 31, 2021
Email: dyingman1@yahoo.com
My Dying Words
Entry #37 – We Are Sojourners
May 12, 2022
[Gen 47:8-9 NASB95] 8 Pharaoh said to Jacob, “How many years have you lived?” 9 So Jacob said to Pharaoh, “The years of my sojourning are one hundred and thirty; few and unpleasant have been the years of my life, nor have they attained the years that my fathers lived during the days of their sojourning.”
[1Ch 29:15 NASB95] 15 “For we are sojourners before You, and tenants, as all our fathers were; our days on the earth are like a shadow, and there is no hope.
[1Pe 2:11 NASB95] 11 Beloved, I urge you as aliens and strangers to abstain from fleshly lusts which wage war against the soul.
[Heb 11:13-16 NASB95] 13 All these died in faith, without receiving the promises, but having seen them and having welcomed them from a distance, and having confessed that they were strangers and exiles on the earth. 14 For those who say such things make it clear that they are seeking a country of their own. 15 And indeed if they had been thinking of that [country] from which they went out, they would have had opportunity to return. 16 But as it is, they desire a better [country,] that is, a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God; for He has prepared a city for them.
A sojourner is someone who lives in a place only temporarily; an exile or transient is someone who has had to leave the place of their home and go to live in a place where they are an alien, someone not native. And that is what these scriptures call us. As Solomon says also in 1 Chronicles 29, our days “are like a shadow, and there is no hope.” I’m assuming Solomon’s “no hope” refers to our lives having no hope of escaping that fate of sojourning, or exiles, and more to the point that our days are like a shadow, fleeting and temporary. There is no escape, no hope of breaking free from the sooness of death; outside of Christ, there is indeed no hope.
Death shows us that we are indeed sojourners as our lives are so brief compared to God: one day is like a thousand years and a thousand years like one day for Him says 2 Peter 3:8, or to put it another way, our lives are a mist, a fog of the early morning says James 4:14, here for a short while then gone. It shows us we are also exiles, tenants, renters so to speak, as we are living where, as God explains to us, is not our true or final home. He has already prepared for us a city, a place where we will not be an alien, but rather a native, a member of a people who are finally at rest because they have come home. And, there our lives will not be a shadow, but eternal, full, complete, never-ending, full of joy and quite the opposite of “no hope”.
It is this perspective that I believe leads Paul to say to those rich in the things of this world:
[1Ti 6:18-19 NASB95] 18 [Instruct them] to do good, to be rich in good works, to be generous and ready to share, 19 storing up for themselves the treasure of a good foundation for the future, so that they may take hold of that which is life indeed.
“That which is life indeed.” Paul points out to us an application of being a sojourner and exile. We in America are among the wealthiest population in the history of the world. But, it is so easy not only to take that fact for granted, but also to never be satisfied, to always want more, to wish we could be among the wealthiest elite. We tell ourselves that we would be different, that we wouldn’t be changed by that kind of wealth. But, the scriptures are full of warnings about money: You can’t serve God and money; it is hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven; that the love of money is a root of all sorts of evil, etc. We wouldn’t forget those warnings, of course not. We would take hold of that which is life indeed. Sure, we would…
As I’ve mentioned in an earlier entry I took early retirement from HP, and we sold our home and moved to another city so I could get my doctorate in physical therapy. Eventually, however, even after receiving my degree and working in that city for 5 years, we decided that we needed to return to our hometown as my wife’s mom could no longer live alone and care safely for herself. When we were planning the return, a dear friend who sold real estate told us he knew a Christian brother who had bought a new home, but left the old one with a minimum of furniture and not yet ready to sell. The owner of the home graciously offered us his old home to live in while we waited to close on the home we had purchased and then waited for the floors to be refinished. We were then sojourners – living in what wasn’t our home, using furniture and appliances that weren’t our own.
And, that is exactly our situation while living in this world. Even the wealthy are living in homes that are ultimately not theirs, and using things that don’t finally belong to them. Should my wife and I have bought new furniture and appliances? Should we have settled in as if we would live in that house for decades? How foolish those acts would have been had we done them. What a waste of time and money. We were preparing to move into the home that would be ours and working on plans for that next home so it would be ready for us. Let me encourage you to remember that picture – your life here is short; don’t let yourself be distracted by things that will be gone soon enough. Remember, you are only a sojourner. Live that way. I know it’s hard to change to that perspective. It’s like someone trying to stop smoking cigarettes. It takes the power of the Holy Spirit to do it. Pray for that strength.
Next: Death and the Resurrection (there’ll be other entries with a similar title!)