🙌It's the Friday Call to Worship!🙌

I’m writing this 10,000 feet above ground, from an airplane somewhere between Tennessee and Texas. My youngest sons and I have been away from “home” for almost four weeks to renew necessary documents for life abroad.

When we arrived a few weeks ago, the twangy accents caught me off guard. My kids are being raised in a country with 12 national languages, so they just assumed people were speaking other languages!

I haven’t found the time or words to process my own experience of being in the US for the first time in ten years yet. Sights, sounds, and rhythms of life are both foreign and familiar. Although I sound more like people here than where I live, it feels surprisingly unsettling to hear my own accent coming from everyone around me.

Intentionally or not, we adapt to our surroundings over time. Sometimes it’s funny things like driving on “the other side” of the road and converting to the metric system. Often, it’s a way of speaking, dressing or thinking. Scripture’s history shows that it’s also how (and who) we worship.

The Biblical narrative recounts God’s people seeing His open glory over and over. They walked through parted waters, were rescued, redeemed, healed, and more. They had a unique language, culture and lifestyle that pointed them continuously to a loving Father, yet they kept picking up the lust and idolatry of other nations. Our senses, standards and norms are always looking for informants. If we don’t incline our hearts to God or look above what’s happening around us, we are trusting the world to write our stories.

As I write from the sky, I think I’m ok with not feeling completely comfortable anywhere on earth. That doesn’t mean I’ve achieved some super-spiritual milestone. It actually means I’m awkward wherever I go. But it’s also assurance’s that this world is not my home. No country or kingdom on earth can encompass my full identity or yours, if you belong to Jesus.

Incline your heart to Him today. Listen to “Break Open” by Pat Barrett.