Your Papers, Please

Instead, as you share in the sufferings of the Messiah rejoice, so that you may also rejoice with great joy at the revelation of His glory. - 1 Peter 4:13

Soon after we arrived overseas back in 2009, we were informed that the country we were entering was requiring U.S. citizens to have resident visas. We, along with five of our colleagues, spent an entire morning at the police station while a member of the Mission staff worked on securing our "Titre Provisoire de Sejour (Provisional Title of Stay)" and visa stamp. If we were stopped by the police (a frequent occurrence in our host city at the time), then these documents would indicate that we were in the country legally and that we had a rightful claim to be there.

If someone asked you to prove your citizenship in the Kingdom of God, to provide your "Christian" papers, what would you show them? While you await the return of the King, what is your "Provisional Title of Stay?"

Here are some possibilities: joy in the midst of tribulation, trial, and ministry; hope when the world around you seems to slide deeper and deeper into chaos and ruin; and then there's love for one another, when hatefulness seems popular and in vogue.

No matter how we choose to identify ourselves, may that identity literally shout the presence of Christ everywhere we go and wherever we choose to live!

It is in proportion, as we are known to God that we find our real being and identity in Christ. We know Him in and through ourselves in so far as His truth is the source of our being and His merciful love is the very heart of our life and existence. - Thomas Merton