An Immigrant’s Journey to the New Country – An Allegory for Faith and the Kingdom of God
As I have been praying, thinking, and writing about faith – true faith and false faith – I kept wondering, “If we need faith (true faith) to please God, God must not be very pleased with me because I do not walk in true faith 100 % of the time”. Who does?
In my prayer time this morning I asked Jesus to help me understand this reality. As I sat quietly, I got the image I am sharing with you in this post. It helped me understand the dynamic nature of faith – both true faith and false faith – and God’s great love for each of us, whether we walk in true faith or not.
Before I get into a description of the image, I want to say that to me faith, repentance, and entering the Kingdom of God are different aspects of the same ‘whole’. When I write ‘true faith’ I also mean entering into and living in the Kingdom. And Jesus tells us that there can be no Kingdom life without repentance, which goes hand-in-hand with faith. And repentance is turning from false faith (finding your value and sense of belonging in the kingdom of the world) to true faith in the Kingdom of God. True faith is trusting and risking your total life on Jesus – Savior, Lord, Redeemer, Friend, and Restorer.
Here is the vision I received:
I saw a baby born into a country. I will call it the Old Country. As he grew he learned the language and customs of the country. He loved the food, the celebrations and ceremonies, and the security that comes from a predictable life. Of course, his parents, relatives, and friends all lived nearby. He had a job, hobbies, and some money in his pocket. It was home!
But something was missing. He couldn’t put his finger on it, but he was not really satisfied. One day he watched a documentary on TV about life in another country. I’ll call it the New Country. And then it hit him – what he was missing could be found in the life there. He didn’t really understand how he knew that—it was as if a still, small voice was whispering, “That is where you need to live”.
Over time that voice became more insistent and his uneasiness with life in the Old Country grew. One day, through circumstances that he didn’t understand, he made a monumental decision – he would leave the Old Country and travel to and enter into the New Country.
It was not an easy decision. His parents and relatives protested – “don’t leave us”. His friends did not understand. And, in truth, he knew that there were things in the Old Country he would miss, especially the comfortable life. There was also the risk. What if the New Country did not deliver the life he had seen on the documentary? What if he got there and found he couldn’t fit in, or worse, was not welcome. But he had made up his mind – no turning back.
He turned away from his old customs, habits, even friends and set off for the New Country determined to make a new life for himself.
When he landed in the New Country (he flew many hours to get there), he joined the line for Customs and Immigration. He had no baggage, only the clothes on his back. At the immigration desk, the Official asked him, “What do you want me to do for you?” He said, “Sir, I want to live in the New Country”. The Official told him, pointing to his right, “Stand over there with the others”. He found himself in a large hall with no chairs. At the front of the hall was a stage with a podium and microphone. He looked around and saw people from what looked like every country in the world – and some of the people looked poorer than he was. Some even looked dangerous.
A few minutes later, a man dressed in a long, flowing rob with a white collar walked up the microphone on the stage. He welcomed them to the New Country and said how blessed he was to address them. He spoke to them about gifts they would receive in the New Country. Then he told them to raise their right hands and repeat after him – they were about to receive the greatest gift of all. The man, who didn’t speak the language of the New Country very well, couldn’t understand all of the words. But he knew that he was being asked to trust the government, obey and support the laws of the New Country, and to revoke his citizenship in the Old Country. He took a public oath to all of this and more. As he spoke, a strong emotion, passion really, began to well up in his heart. When he finished, he knew that he had begun a new life – he was a new man. He was filled with hope and certainty about the future – a kind of faith, although he didn’t know that concept. Already the New Country was meeting his expectations – he was accepted and valued. His resolve to put the old behind him was strengthened. He felt a kinship, even a love, for those who had gone through the ceremony with him.
Next he stood in line to receive one of the gifts the man had told them about. When it was his turn to approach the desk, the Official took his photograph, and right on the spot, gave the man a passport from the New Country. As the Official handed over the new passport he said, “Turn in your passport from the Old Country, you cannot have dual citizenship”. He gladly handed over the old passport, and in that act felt something shift in his heart. Was it freedom? He wasn’t sure. It was a new emotion.
He walked out of the immigration hall into sunlight. He was a citizen of the New Country! He was an official, legal resident. It was done! And no one would ever take it away from him. In that one act of swearing the oath, all that was needed to become a citizen was accomplished, with all the rights and privileges of the New Country. And he knew it deep in his heart – he was ‘in’ — and he never, from that day on, doubted this truth.
Life in the New Country was all that he had hoped for and more. But life was not there for the taking. He had work to do. But he found a decent job, worked his way up in the company through study and focusing on and doing the right things. He met a woman, got married, and began a family. And through all of this, he was aware that the New Country was not just a place of abundance and peace. There was something in the air, something special. And one day he realized that this ‘something’ was what he had missed in his old life – in part it was freedom; it was also healing and a sense of being whole. Whatever it was, he wanted more of it.
But, after a time in the New Country, he began to be aware of a strange tension in his heart. At first he could not identify the source of the tension. Then early one morning, lying in bed, he knew. The things of the Old Country were beginning to pull on his heart. He admitted he missed some comforts of old routines. He also missed the food. Of course, he missed his family and friends. He was homesick! While he was adjusting to the culture in the New Country, he found some of it confusing and strange. And the language – he still couldn’t understand some of the words used there like faith, grace, predestination (he never did figure that one out), repentance, and Holy Spirit. As good as life was in the New Country, he began to yearn for things in his old home.
Finally, he couldn’t take it anymore. He left in the middle of the night, booked a flight and traveled a long way back to the Old Country (he would do this multiple times over the next several years). But life there was even more uninspiring and dull than he had remembered it, even depressing and gray. And from almost the moment he arrived, he heard a voice calling him to come back home. He told his friends and family about the beauty of the New Country. “Come back with me”, he said. But they didn’t believe him. “Too good to be true. Besides, we like it here. It is what we know”, they said. Each time he traveled to the Old Country he began by half-heartedly resisting the voice, but in the end the voice won and he couldn’t wait to get home. When he flew back to the New Country and presented his passport to the Immigration Official, the Official looked at the man, smiled, and said, “Welcome home”. Of course, it wasn’t that simple. He had to confess to his wife where he had gone and what he had done. He really was sorry to have left – but at the time he just couldn’t help himself. His wife forgave him, although sometimes not without a lot of prayer — the forgiveness was not always easy.
But gradually as he became more integrated into the New Country, as he assimilated into the culture, learned the language, met more people, began to participate in the life in the New Country, the ties to the Old Country began to grow weaker. Life became fuller with more joy and satisfaction. Slowly he was being healed, the broken parts of his old life were being remade and fused together into a wholeness he gave thanks for every day.
After a few years, he realized that while he had come to live in the New Country, the New Country was now living in him.
Out of gratitude, he began to serve. He discovered a passion to help recently arrived immigrants adjust to their new life. This work blessed him as he blessed others.
He did make one disturbing discovery. Occasionally he met new immigrants who wanted to live in the New Country, but didn’t want what the New Country offered. They brought the ‘Old Country’ with them into the New Country. They wanted the old comforts and ways of thinking, and the physical benefits of the new. He tried to tell them, “It doesn’t work that way. Leave the old behind, embrace the new”. But they wouldn’t listen to him. Little changed for them — they brought with them the bondage of the old so that there was no room in their hearts to receive the freedom of the new. He never stopped encouraging them, but was sad that that they had travelled so far and would receive so little. Over time, their ‘new — old’ life produced little ‘good fruit’.
His journey to become the citizen that he dreamed of becoming never ended. There was always more to learn, more to do, and more transformation to undergo. In fact, when he died he was still learning. But one thing he held close to his heart until the day he died, especially in the midst of struggles (even the citizens of the New Country experienced pain and tragedy) is that in the moment when he took the oath years ago, he became a fully legal citizen of the New Country. No one could deny that truth or take it away. He belonged. So even in the midst of tragedy he had a rock to stand on and a strange, but real sense of joy. And no matter how many trips he took back to the Old Country, whenever he showed up at that immigration desk, the Official always smiled and said, “Welcome home. You were missed, my beloved son.”
We can never live perfectly in the Kingdom of God. While our faith in Jesus and life in His Kingdom is our ultimate concern, we can be drawn back into that life of false faith, where those old idols still have a grip on us. But gradually, as we grow into the Kingdom life, especially through prayer and study, as we continue to repent (we don’t repent, we are repentant), God, through His Spirit, works miracles in our hearts. We find ourselves becoming more like Jesus as His Spirit grows within us, and those old habits begin to fade – although for many of us they never completely die. And when we do travel back into the kingdom of the world, and then repent and return to the Kingdom of God, God always welcomes us back saying, “Welcome home, my beloved Child”. He never revokes our passport and He will never turn us away because we have a permanent, legal right to be there. We belong (to Him).
“because by one sacrifice He has made perfect forever those who are being made holy” (Hebrews 10: 14 NIV).
“We are becoming what we already are. This is the dynamic of the Christian life – being and becoming both at the same time.”
“I will do it for you, but you must do it with Me.”
Faith is a gift. Praying for more faith,
John