If you’ve ever been on a driving holiday you will have clocked up a few kilometres, passed through numerous towns, and hopefully seen some wonderful sights.  On a driving holiday you’re always ‘passing through’. You might book a hotel room, eat a meal or two, buy some petrol, but the impact you make on each town is minimal. I’m sure the locals are glad that you visited and spent some money, but you won’t be remembered. In the big picture of town life, your visit is virtually insignificant.

This shouldn’t surprise us. The towns we visit on a driving holiday are not our ‘home’. There is a sense by which we don’t ‘belong’ there.

As I’ve driven around Australia, Scotland, or New Zealand, I’ve passed countless memorials with names engraved on them to remember some great sacrifice or achievement. I like to read memorials if I have the time and ponder the names, but most people seem to completely ignore them. And even after reading a memorial, the names inscribed in stone mean nothing to me. All the people mentioned have long since left planet earth.

In life, even when we have a strong sense of location and home, it’s like we’re on a driving holiday. We stop for a while and make relatively little impact. We won’t be remembered. At best we’re only ever ‘passing through’.

This shouldn’t surprise us. This world is not our ‘home’. There is a sense by which we don’t ‘belong’ here. We passing through, on the way to our eternal home, where we will not just be remembered, but known and loved forever.