"A better country" refers to Hebrews 11:16. While our family would joke that Minnesota qualifies as a better country, it's come to mean a lot more to me than a physical place. When the writer of Hebrews ( some say Paul) spoke about Abraham and Sarah leaving their home to follow God's call, he speaks about a better country that they were setting their hopes on- the beginnings of God's kingdom, the family that would become a peculiar people to God. They left behind their hopes and dreams and plans to follow God's. In many ways, our family has done just that.

I don't claim to be part of a patriarchal family, but we do find some commonality with a nomadic lifestyle. Our family has left our beginnings in Texas to live in Minnesota, Oklahoma, and now Oregon. We have put aside some dreams in order to follow God's call for us in Christian camp ministry. We have undergone two cross country moves and one on-site move in 3 years. I experienced my first job loss ever last year-quite a bit harder experience than I would have thought. And a little like Sarah, we have a new baby in a time when no one expected us to have any more kids, least of all us!

When I worry about our future or how things will work out, I find a lot of comfort in the Hebrews passage. This isn't our permanent home, and we really are just temporary nomads here on this side of things. It encourages me and invites me to hold on to the things in my life loosely and to concentrate on what will last-- people and my relationship with Christ, where my ultimate and permanent home really is.

¹⁵If they had been thinking of the country they had left, they would have had opportunity to return. ¹⁶Instead, they were longing for a better country—a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them.