We are also to feel like strangers, not quite at home on the earth. In faith we admit, like believers of old, that we are aliens and strangers in the here and now (Heb. 11:13-16). They were not thinking of the country they had left. Instead they were longing for a better country—a heavenly one. If you have been to a new place, without a friend, and aren’t familiar with the language and cultural cues, you will feel lost. I experienced that estrangement in Fuzhou, China, when my host didn’t show up for 18 hours. Though local people smiled to make me feel welcome, my predicament as a foreigner, a wayfaring stranger, was obvious to them and to me.

“Alien” is an uncomfortable word, but it refers to us believers in this world, on this side of eternity. For over two decades, I carried a resident alien card. I worked and paid taxes in America. I enjoyed her benefits, yet I was her guest. I couldn’t vote. I stood in a separate line at the immigration counter. Easy entry to friendly countries was open to US citizens, but resident aliens still had to procure a visa. While I considered America home, America considered me a visitor.

What if a guest in your house decided to consider your house his permanent home? To consider this world our home dupes us, compromises our identity, and confuses other citizens of this earth. You too are a card-carrying alien on life’s journey—a guest-worker, a stranger, and a pilgrim on the earth. You shouldn’t be surprised if you are suspected, rejected, and if citizens say all manner of evil against you falsely for Jesus’ sake (Matt. 5:11). We are not of this world, said the Lord (John 17:14). Our citizenship is in heaven (Phil. 3:20).

Home: A Biblical Metaphor for Heaven

In short, we need to develop a home-view of heaven. The following features of a healthy home when applied to heaven claim and calm life’s ongoing journey:

Permanence. Great earthly cities have been reduced to rubble by the erosion of civilizations or the eruptions of volcanoes. Unlike such temporary, changing, rootless urban habitats, heaven is the city with foundations (Heb. 11:10). A home-view of heaven conveys permanence. No developer will destroy, no earthquake will dismantle, no project will displace your permanent heavenly home Jesus said he is preparing a “room,” or otherwise translated,” a dwelling place” for us.That phrase emphasizes the durability and eternalness of our home in heaven (John 14:1-3).

Reference. A healthy home provides a reference for your preferences and choices. That’s why restaurants woo you with “home-cooked” meals, just like mother made them. Hotels want to be your “home away from home.” Newlyweds might be disappointed because their new home is not like the home they knew. Beer-bellied, grown men sing nostalgia-filled carols about being “home for the holidays.” Why? Because home is the reference point for us wherever we go, whatever we experience. A man who forget home forgets his identity, one of the saddest of all psychological setbacks—he has lost his reference point.

Your home gave you your worldview—the “referential control-box” by which you conduct life. Even if you want to get away as far as possible from home, you are defined by what you got away from, your point of departure. Similarly, a home-view of heaven equips you with God’s reference for all of life. Yes, we look for city that is to come, but we are not just looking! We live by the values of that heavenly city, “the city of the living God” (Heb. 12:22) while on the journey. We want to eat according to home time, march by heaven’s drumbeat choose by heaven’s convictions. Our heavenly destination controls our decisions even now.

Acceptance — unconditional acceptance. Heaven welcomes as you are—weary, gaunt, crumpled, even confused. God is “not ashamed to be called their [your] God and he has prepared city for them [you]” (Heb. 11:16). God is your host. He deliberately chose you as you are, knowing more about you than you can ever know. By grace, God loves you as you are. Heaven awaits your arrival, to welcome you home—without reservation, condition, or qualification.

A distinctive of the Christian faith is the security and the assurance of knowing you WILL arrive. Christians and Buddhists share vital truth—death focuses life. However, unlike the Buddhist death focuses the Christian life because of what is guaranteed after death. Life is not extinguished at death like a candlewick. As our eternal home, heaven revises our view of death and present life. So how can you live in earth’s time-zone while living with heaven in mind, especially when they compete for your immediate attention? If I lived solely in the now, I wouldn’t be any different from the majority of my co-passengers on the flight who eat, drink, and sleep by plane time rather than by home time. If I only lived for the future, I wouldn’t be addressing present exigencies—I can’t wait another 10 hours to eat. It’s often not practical to live in a future perfect tense when you have to deal with the present imperfect…tense!

When Bonnie and I travel, she keeps her watch on home time. She never changes her watch. When we leave home, she keeps to home time, not only to explain her body rhythms; but to be aware of home routines—kids waking up, going to school, returning home, etc. That certainly makes for an easier return. Yet, the further she travels the more uncomfortable she gets. She never adjusts to local time—she exists through it. She travels with me, but lives to come back home. She could do that for a couple of weeks, but not for the rest of her life. During early days of my peripatetic life, on the other hand, I used to change my watch to local time in order to accommodate the realities of the ministry situation there. The present was nonnegotiable, if I had to live, speak, meet people according to local time. However, I could become preoccupied with the present while being occupied in it. I dealt better with the present, but I could mistake the temporary residence for home.

Dual-Time: Living the home-view of Heaven

With these time models for our lives as Christians, we could end up living entirely either for the future or for the present. Is there a solution? Yes. I recommend you wear a spiritual “dual-time” watch. When I travel these days I am better aware of local time and home time. I wear a dual-time watch. It’s not physically possible to live in two time zones, but I live in local time with home time in mind. Neither living for the present, nor the future, but living in the present with the future in mind. The big dial on my dual-time watch shows local time—where I am. The small dial is set to home time—where I am from and to where I am eventually heading. On the flight home, I actually switch dials—the big dial is turned to home time, with the small dial referring to local time. In a week or less after return, I will align the dials. Everything on that watch and in my life will be adjusted to home time.

I conclude with a three-fold invitation to you on how to live in the present with a home-view of heaven.

First, enjoy the acceptance of home while on the journey. Too much of life is spent attempting to become worthy to those whom we value. A home-view of heaven keeps you from the obligation of proving yourself, frees you from self-assertion, and liberates you from a performance syndrome. You are accepted in Christ already (Eph. 1:6). Enjoy your acceptance; your identity in the Chief Host of heaven who awaits your return home. Rejection by fellow travelers or local citizens is insignificant compared to the unqualified acceptance of home You are emancipated from attempting to qualify for heaven … another great distinctive of our faith. Accept the acceptance of home—the prodigal had to come to terms with that singular truth before returning home. And extend the welcome to fellow travelers—the older brother needed to learn that lesson (Luke 15:28-32).

Second, exchange everything that is fleeting with the permanent stuff of home, beginning immediately. Just like I exchange my final rubles, rupees, or ringgit into home currency at the airport bank, I recommend you develop an exchange mindset. Foreign currency is no good at home. I have a box of strange coins all thrown together with little or no use at home except as exhibits or memories. Pilgrims don’t travel with large amounts of unused or unusable currency. The Lord Jesus referred to the heavenly exchange program when he encouraged us to invest in the currency of heaven. Moth and rust do not corrupt, and thieves do not break through and steal in heaven (Matt. 6:20). How you expense your earnings will determine the exchange rate you get at the Bank of Heaven someday. So invest your fragile, fussy, feeble life in what lasts forever.

Third, embrace heaven’s values as the reference for your life on earth. Heaven is one home we haven’t been to yet, so study the subject of heaven in Scripture so you can smell, feel, touch, hear, even see heaven with your spiritual senses. Reflect on deep questions like, “What will count for eternity?” “Will this decision affect heaven?” “How can I face eternity without regrets?” “How does heaven process this tragedy?” These questions are not unlike what I ponder when overseas: “What matters to Bonnie at home?” For example, Bonnie, my super-tidy wife, would want me to keep a habitable and hospitable room, so I keep my hotel room free of clutter. She’d want me to return home healthy, so I stay away from uncooked vegetables or undercooked food. Similarly ask, “What matters to God?” Or, “what would He want?” Embrace and implement those values now. You will then subsume the local under the eternal, control the immediate by the ultimate, overwhelm the relative with the absolute. Your transcendent home time would have taken over expedient local and urgent penchants. By the way, home is only as good as your relationship with the ones in it. If it weren’t for family, my home wouldn’t be worth pining for. And if it wasn’t for the Lord Jesus, even heaven isn’t worth anticipating! How is your relationship with the One, the Chief Host of heaven, who Himself is Our Eternal Home, according to the perceptive hymn writer of “O God, Our Help in Ages Past”?

One day, before long, there will be complete alignment of all zones and dimensions of reality. Wear a spiritual dual-time watch, with a home-view of heaven until you get there. After all has been said and done, the matter is simple: this is NOT home. Hold on, hang on fellow traveler, we are not home yet!

A Postscript of Reminiscence: Personifying a Home-View of Heaven

Two days before I sent the above article to LaVerne Gryte, a mentor of Bonnie’s and mine, she made the final alignment with heaven’s time. Her flight home began nearly 10 years ago. Given 3 to 5 years to live, she easily adjusted the big dial on her dual-time watch to heaven. She quickly learned to live on earth with home time in mind.

She modeled the unconditional acceptance of heaven, by accepting herself as God had accepted her. A person of elegance and excellence, she viewed life as “Divine Privilege.” Think about that phrase. She didn’t clutch life as an obligation, right, or a reward, but considered it a privilege. She accepted her roles and gifts—spouse, mother, grandmother, teacher, mentor, friend, businesswoman, speaker, listener, encourager, and on and on. Everyone was comfortable with her accepting style—Mother Theresa during a visit to Calcutta, Robby (our son) on a personal phone call, a younger woman needing courage in life, or even her care-giving community who ended up receiving her care.

She also lived with reference to heaven. Early in her cancer battle, she committed herself to going home—not in resignation, but in deep resolve to see her Savior. We talked a lot about the sanctity of that desire and she graciously conceded that the rest of us needed her ongoing ministry. To force an arrival would be to crash the plane. She paid me my highest compliment, not only in adopting my purpose as her own, but living it better than I could: “to make God look good and make Christ well known.” A couple of months ago, three of us met at the Minneapolis airport for about 20 minutes. “Ramesh, I must go home now. This is our last time here.” We bid farewell with an extra-long embrace and tears of joyous gratitude for deep friendship over a dozen years. LaVerne was right—she was going not just to Grand Forks, but home to heaven.

Further, she exchanged the temporary for the permanent, even before she arrived home. Generous to the core with time, money, and friends, she more critically affected the project paths of RREACH International than any other for over a dozen years. We christened her our “honorary executive director” and printed business cards for her. She owned large projects for herself and personally seized opportunities in media evangelism and pastoral training worldwide. She wanted her passing earthly life to count for a permanent eternity in reaching large numbers of people in economically weaker countries. In fact, a couple of dreams that we shared for America are yet to become a reality. At the Bema judgment of God, her works will not be burned up. They will remain.

LaVerne lived out the truth of Paul’s spiritual tension—”eager to go home, but willing to stay for the sake of those around her” (Phil 1:19-26). Indeed, during her 69 impact-filled years of divine privilege, she made God look good and Christ well known—from a small town in remote North Dakota to the ends of the earth. She personified a home-view of heaven—an example for those of us still practicing.

Thank you, beloved sister, friend, and partner LaVerne Gryte from the families, staff, boards, supporters, and beneficiaries of RREACH International. We too want to live on earth like you did, with a home-view of heaven.