A People In Transit

“Blessed are those whose strength is in you, who have set their hearts on pilgrimage” – Psalm 84:5 (NIV)

Nossi Be is the tourist capital of Madagascar. Every year thousands come to fish in its waters, feast in its restaurants and play on its beaches. But it was not any of these attractions that made me almost miss my flight while transiting through its airport last month. I had four hours to wait and sought to redeem the time by catching up on work on my laptop. But I got so drawn into what I was working on at that moment that I forgot that I was in transit.

The Bible calls us pilgrims – a people in transit. But how often we get so drawn into the moment we forget, that no matter how sweet or difficult what we are facing presently may be, we are in transit! I love the way the Psalmist captures it in Psalm 84:5-7;

“Blessed are those whose strength is in you,
who have set their hearts on pilgrimage.

As they pass through the Valley of Baca,
they make it a place of springs;
the autumn rains also cover it with pools.

They go from strength to strength,
till each appears before God in Zion”

The only way to avoid distraction is to ‘set our hearts on pilgrimage’. It requires fixing our eyes on our destination and using everything that comes our way – good or bad – as a means of getting there. Now, what is our destination? Our destination is the place of becoming completely like Christ and of being with him forever. As John triumphantly declares, ‘…..we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is’ (1 John 3:2). There is coming a day when we will see our Lord Jesus face-to-face and on that day we will be exactly like him. And the road to this place is the path of being transformed daily into his likeness. This is the path we must walk as pilgrims. And this is the only way by which we can be useful in this present life.

Where God is taking us is the place of being conformed into the likeness of his Son, Jesus Christ in every way. He is taking us there in every season of life we go through. And if we avoid distraction we will get nearer and nearer to this place daily. Setting our heart on pilgrimage would mean a mind-set that asks, ‘How can I co-operate with God so as to use my present situation as a means to Christ-likeness?’.

It is this mind-set that makes those who have set their hearts on pilgrimage able to turn ‘the Valley of Baca’ into ‘a place of springs’. The Valley of Baca is literally the valley of weeping. It is the place of troubles and trials. Men who mistake their transit point for their destination are normally buried here. But the pilgrim turns it into a place of the springs, because he sees it as a means of transiting into Christ-likeness. Can you see how all things work for the good of the pilgrim?

This is why the pilgrim goes ‘from strength to strength’ into the likeness of Christ through good times and bad times until that day when he ‘appears before God in Zion’ – that day when he finally sees Jesus face-to-face to be with him forever. It is true that that day will be glorious, but for the undistracted pilgrim, even now his life reflects some of that glory as he is being changed daily. The glory of the life of a pilgrim releases a well-spring of life to the world around him. His life turns the Valley of Baca into a place of springs from which many in this our patched and thirsty world can find life-giving drink.

So beloved, we are pilgrims – a people in transit. We are his, we are becoming like him and are going to be with him forever. Don’t let anything distract you this. Press on to be all that God has called you to be.