Freeonlinedictionary.com defines pilgrimage as “a long journey or search, especially one of exalted purpose or moral significance.”

When Pharaoh asked Jacob his age, Jacob referred to his life as a pilgrimage, a journey with God.

Gen 47: 8 Pharaoh asked him, “How old are you?” 9 And Jacob said to Pharaoh, “The years of my pilgrimage are a hundred and thirty. My years have been few and difficult, and they do not equal the years of the pilgrimage of my fathers. 10 Then Jacob blessed Pharaoh and went out from his presence.

Interestingly, Pharaoh was regarded in Egyptian religion as a god, a spiritual authority. Yet he allowed Jacob to bless him, acknowledging that Jacob was a man of God. Pharaoh acknowledged the God of Jacob.

In Philippians 3:20, Paul says, But our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ.

These insights help us look at our circumstances in the light of eternity, that this world is not our home and resting place. We are here in a dress rehearsal only for eternity and our choices here impact where we will spend eternity.

When we experience difficult times, we are reminded that troubles pass. There is something greater waiting for us beyond this physical life that will last forever. It helps us to endure and persevere.

When we are experiencing good times, we are reminded that we ought not to fall in love with the world and make it our god or idol, that we ought not to sell our souls to experience the passing pleasures of sin, that our destination and goal is not to be the (wo)man of this world but to be the (wo)man of God.

Lord, thank You for this reminder. Help me to live my life with a keen awareness that I only have a traveler’s visa in this current world, that my homeland is with You in heaven. Help me to behave like a citizen of heaven as I am currently Your ambassador to the people I meet on my journey. People who have not heard of Your home or known You will be impacted by how I conduct myself. Please fill me with Your Holy Spirit to override my fleshly tendencies so that I may have the proper decorum as Your ambassador in Jesus’s name and for His glory Amen.