Dual Citizenship

     I love my country. I thank God that He has so blessed me that I live in a place that -at least officially- recognizes personal liberty. Where I can openly practice my beliefs and share them with those around me. A nation where I need not fear violence should I speak out against the common beliefs of society. I am blessed that I may seek my future as I see fit, where I may read what I want, say what I want, and think what I want. I am blessed to be so free. I am free to worship my God how I so chose. I am free to gather with my brothers and sisters in the Lord every Sunday. I am free to choose the path of my life and the path of my soul. I am free.

     My country is not perfect. Like every earthly institution it involves people, and people are never perfect. Those in charge of our governance have made mistakes and many of them quite public and quite tragic. Those who did the best they could are intermixed with those who simply did what they wanted. We have held up the noble as heroes and cast down the innocent as villains. My country is not perfect, but it has such great potential. At its heart is the Constitution, a document that outlines a government protected -as much as possible- from strife and greed and power-mad fools. Our laws were drafted with God in mind, for a nation of people who knew that God ruled His creation and that leaders were at best delegated ministers. We have made mistakes, we have made poor choices, but we try. We try our best to do our best, and as a whole we have done rather well.

     I love my country, but my country is not my home. These green fields and busy streets, these blue skies and lofty buildings, these empty plains and busy cities are not my destiny. This beautiful land where nature takes the stage and man's ingenuity raises lofty structures high into the clouds is not enough for me. This land, that I love, is not my final home.

     I am a Christian. This life you see is an illusion, for I died long ago. My heart may keep on beating but I laid myself down on the alter of heaven and died along with Christ that I may live with Him as well. This life, this soul, this existence has been bought and paid for by the sacrifice of one far greater than I. His blood, the blood of Jesus, has paid my way out of darkness and into light. My name has been written down in the records of a higher citizenship. My home is with the Lord. When the grand display of this present world is faded, when Christ returns to claim His own or when my time has run its course and I am left an old and failing form, when every one of our grand designs has crumbled into dust, then I will find the pathway to eternity open and the doors to heaven waiting for me at last. I will walk the streets of gold and follow the pathways of the stream that flows from the throne of God. I will know peace, for heaven is my home.

     I love my countries. This nation that God has blessed me to be a part of is a wonderful earthly place, imperfect and flawed but granted such grace. My heavenly home will be the fulfillment of our every dream. I love my country, but I know this place is not my home. I will fight for its honor, I will support its good and I will decry its evils, but most of all I will hold to it with a loose hand. Every rolling hill and vast city, every reaching mountain and endless suburb will fade and come to its end in due time. My God has blessed me with this nation and I thank Him for it, but I will not cling to it nor let it distract me from the forever that awaits. This whole wonderful terrible world we live in has a deadline, an expiration date, an end; I will keep my eye on the endless.

“For our citizenship is in heaven, from which we also eagerly wait for the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ...”

(Philippians 3:20)