The city with foundations
The home we are looking for
He died the way he had lived, in a tent. Abraham held in his hands the deed to nothing; the land under his feet was promised but not owned, and he kept his belongings light enough to fold and carry by morning. A whole long life, and he never once built the house you would expect a man with his promises to build. Hebrews lets us in on why. He was waiting for the city which has the foundations, the letter says, whose architect and builder is God. He lived in tents because he was holding out for something that could not be struck and packed and moved, something founded, something that stays. He was not a man who failed to settle down. He was a man who refused to settle for a tent, because he had glimpsed a city. That detail reframes a restlessness you may know well, the quiet sense, even after you have rebuilt, that this is still not quite home. It is not a flaw in you. It is the same homesickness that kept an old man in his tent, watching the horizon for the founded city of God.
“He looked for the city which has the foundations, whose builder and maker is God.”
— Of Abraham, in Hebrews — Hebrews 11:10 (WEB)
“For we don't have here an enduring city, but we seek that which is to come.”
What Cannot Be Shaken, today, is the home the longing is for. See Abraham folding his tent again at dawn, deed to nothing, eyes on the horizon: the restlessness was never aimlessness. This phase reads your lingering homesickness as a true signal, not a malfunction. It points past every good tent to a founded city, built by God, that no upheaval can ever strike or move.
That lingering sense that even your rebuilt life is not quite home is not a failure of gratitude, not a flaw to be scolded out of you. It is homesickness, and it is accurate. After all the rebuilding, you might have expected the ache to finally close, and instead a low note of it remains, a sense that even this good, restored life is still somehow not home. Hear what that is before you treat it as ingratitude or failure. Abraham lived his whole life in tents, never settling, because he was holding out for a city with foundations whose builder is God, and the same pull is in you. The restlessness in you points exactly where his did.
Your rebuilt life, however good it becomes, is still a tent; and a tent was never meant to satisfy the longing in you that only a founded city can. So do not despise this life, and do not demand it be a home it was never built to be. The homesickness is not a defect to be cured here; it is a compass, and it is pointing at a real place, a city that cannot be shaken, being built for you by God. Let the ache you cannot close here keep you looking toward the home it was always for.
The Church is forever tempted to promise people their fully arrived best life now, and then to leave them quietly betrayed when it never lands. Hebrews is more honest with the whole Body: here we have no lasting city, but we seek the one that is coming, founded and built by God. Across the centuries the Church has been truest as a pilgrim people, tents folded at dawn, neither sneering at this life nor selling it as the final destination. Before a watching world that builds ever grander permanences and buries them all, the whole Church carries its people's longings rightly, holding good things with open hands. We journey together, deed to nothing, eyes on the founded city that no upheaval can strike or move.
Every dwelling you build here can still be struck and folded; that is the nature of a tent. What cannot be shaken is the city with foundations whose architect is God, the real home the homesickness was always for. The ache is not a wound to be closed in this life. It is a pointer, and what it points to stands forever.
- What homesickness have I been treating as ingratitude when it might be a true compass?
- Where have I asked a tent to be the home it was never built to be?
- If I am still looking for a founded city, how should I hold the good life I have rebuilt?
Lord, even after all the rebuilding, something in me still aches for home, and I have scolded myself for it. Show me it is not ingratitude but homesickness, the same that kept Abraham in his tent, watching for the founded city. Teach me to love this life without demanding it be what it cannot be. Keep my eyes on the city You are building, the one that cannot be shaken, until I arrive. Amen.