groan for home and to live in hope

Suffering causes us to groan for home and to live in hope. The author of Hebrews, surveying the landscape of the Old Testament journeys, shows us the way home.

These all died in faith, not having received the things promised, but having seen them and greeted them from afar, and having acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the earth. For people who speak thus make it clear that they are seeking a homeland. If they had been thinking of that land from which they had gone out, they would have had opportunity to return. But as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared for them a city (Hebrews 11:13–16).

Robert Kellemen, God’s Healing for Life’s Losses, p. 13