MONDAY

2 Corinthians 4:18

• What unseen things are eternal? Why are they so important?

My best friend, Mat, introduced me to a term he and his brother use metaphorically: “tourist.” He explained it to me like this: there are some people that flit in and out of different friend circles, different cities, different contexts. These people are social nomads. They tend to gravitate wherever life takes them without ever truly establishing roots in one place. These people, per Mat and his brother Greg, are “tourists.”

This term came up when I was stressing about a brand-new friendship that I’d damaged. I was venting to Mat one day, and he called the girl a “tourist.” “I don’t mean it in a bad way!” he said, arms up defensively like I had pulled a gun on him. “I just think she’ll be in and out of your life quickly, so I wouldn’t stress too much about it.”

The Bible calls earth our temporary home. Though we can get so stable, so comfortable, in the places we live, God insists that it isn’t where we are meant to be long-term. Instead, we are destined for heaven. We’re just tourists here. So we fix our eyes on where we’re destined to arrive: we fix our eyes on heaven.