TENT LIFE IS AN OPPORTUNITY!

Tent life is about transition. How do you make the most of the in-between time?

You left the Egypt of your slavery, but you’re not yet in the land of promise.
Quitting your old job felt great. But now you need to find a new one.
College is in the rear view mirror, but you can’t see where to go next.
Maybe, like our church, you moved out of one home but the new one isn’t ready yet.

I call this transition time “tent life”.

I’m not talking about camping for fun. This is about living in a tent because you don’t yet have a home. Or because your home flooded. On the way to their destiny, most people have to eat top ramen and live in a van down by the river. At least it may feel something like that.

We all have times between where we were and where we are going. How do you navigate those transitions and use them to accelerate into the future God has for you? How do you leverage the flexibility of tent life and expand your capacity?

Ask Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. They spent their whole lives living in tents while expanding their territory and laying claim to the promises of God.

Ask the children of Israel. They wandered in tents for forty years between their deliverance from slavery and moving into the promised land.

Ask God for that matter. He lived in tents with them. Years later he came and “tabernacled” in the body of Jesus. Then he came and made his dwelling in you and me. He’s always living in temporary, in between dwellings until the permanent home is ready.

For God and us, our permanent home is with each other. The Bible speaks of a city made without hands, whose builder and architect is God. (Heb. 13) It speaks of a permanent home when the tent of our bodies wears out (2 Cor. 5). And it tells of a time when heaven and earth, God and humanity, the bride and the bridegroom, the city and the garden are one. (Rev. 21-22)

It’s Tent Life time!

Now is the in-between time. It’s the tent life. It’s temporary but it’s not irrelevant. It’s not yet heaven on earth. Full restoration is still coming. All the healing Jesus purchased is not yet fully applied to all the brokenness of our world or even of our own lives. But the in-between time, as temporary as it is, gives us time to learn and grow and expand our capacities. We get to grow up into the image of our older brother Jesus and join him in building his kingdom. On earth as it is in heaven.

Our Tent Life series will start August 20th. If you or someone you know is in transition, come learn from God’s story and our wandering family history.