I Am Not Sure We Were Meant to Feel This Settled in the World

I have been thinking about this for a while now, and I have to be honest with you about something.

I do not feel settled.

Not in the way that I think some believers are supposed to feel, anyway. There is a kind of restlessness that has followed me through most of my Christian life, and for a long time I thought it meant something was wrong with me. I thought it meant my faith was not strong enough, or that I was doing it wrong, or that I had not claimed enough promises or prayed enough prayers or trusted enough.

But lately, I am wondering if the problem is not my faith at all. I am wondering if the problem is the assumption that we are supposed to feel settled in the first place.

The Kingdom Is Not Here Already

Jesus told us plainly that His kingdom is not of this world. He said that right out loud, in front of everyone, in John 18. He told Pontius Pilate that His kingdom is not from here. And that means something. That means the kingdom we are living for, the kingdom we are being built into, the kingdom we are inheriting, is not the kingdom we can see and touch and build and settle into.

And if that is true, then how are we supposed to feel at home here?

Paul understood this. He wrote to the Philippians and told them that our citizenship is in heaven. Not in America. Not in whatever country we call home. In heaven. And that means we are living as exiles, as strangers, as people whose real home is somewhere we have not yet gone.

That word "citizenship" in the original Greek carries the sense of being a citizen of a different city, a different country, a different realm altogether. It is the word used for someone who belongs to Rome but is currently living elsewhere. A citizen of heaven, living on earth. That is what Paul is saying we are.

The Discomfort Is the Point

Peter picks this up too. He calls us strangers and exiles. Not people who have arrived. Not people who have found their home. Strangers and exiles, living among a people and a culture that is not our own.

Notice the imagery. We are not at home. We are passing through. And the things that the world offers us, the things that promise us comfort and security and settledness, are actually the things that make war against our souls.

That is a hard word. And I do not write it to make you uncomfortable. Or maybe I do, actually. Because I think we have been told, far too often, that the Christian life is supposed to be comfortable. That if we follow Jesus, He will give us peace and prosperity and safety and settle us into a life that looks like success.

But that is not what the New Testament says. That is not what the early followers of Jesus were told.

What the Early Followers Actually Found

Look at the book of Acts. The early church was beaten, imprisoned, run out of towns, stoned, left for dead, scattered. They did not gather in beautiful buildings with nice parking lots. They met in homes, in caves, in prison cells. They were poor, and small, and despised, and often in danger.

And yet Luke writes that they were filled with joy.

They were being arrested and thrown in jail for preaching, and they were still teaching every day. That does not sound like a people who have found their settling place. That sounds like a people who know they have something worth suffering for.

Now, I am not saying that God does not give us good things. I am not saying that He does not provide or protect or give us moments of deep peace. He does all of that, and I have experienced it, and I am grateful for it.

But I am saying that maybe the restlessness is not a bug. Maybe it is a feature. Maybe the reason we do not feel at home is because we are not supposed to feel at home. Not completely. Not yet.

This Changes Everything About How We Live

If we are not meant to feel settled, then we stop trying to build a kingdom here. We stop pouring all of our energy into making this life comfortable and secure. We stop believing the lie that the goal is a nice house and a safe retirement and kids who never struggle.

Instead, we start investing in something that will last. We start pouring our energy into people instead of things. We start speaking truth instead of making peace. We start giving away what we have instead of hoarding it for security. We start choosing the kingdom over the comfort.

And that is hard. And it costs something. And there are days when I do not want to do it. There are days when I want to just settle down and enjoy what I have built and stop fighting against the current.

But then I remember that I belong to a kingdom that is not from here. And I remember that the God who invited me into this kingdom is the same God who left heaven to come and live among us, and He had nowhere to lay His head.

Jesus, the King of the universe, the King whose kingdom will never end, had nowhere to lay His head. That is either a scandal or a clue. And I think it is a clue. I think it tells us something about what we are signing up for.

Maybe it is okay to not feel settled. Maybe the restlessness is the Holy Spirit warning us that we have started to love this world a little too much. Maybe it is the gift of knowing that there is something more, something better, something coming.

Maybe we were never meant to feel at home here. And maybe that is not the problem. Maybe that is the point.