I'll Have What They're Having.

Something that my Haley mentioned when she came to visit me was that in Hebrews 11 (you know the one that's called "The Hall of Faith"), it says that all of those faithful dudes died without having their hope fulfilled.
Specifically,
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.
Hebrews 11:13.
Okay, so there's that.
I've been reading, rather sporadically, in Hebrews lately. Want to know a secret?

                                                                           Before, I never even liked Hebrews. I know it's horrible to not like a book of the Bible, but I just couldn't get into it. Shhhhh.

Regardless, when I came to this, I remembered what Haley said, and I got excited. I know it's kind of a funny verse to get excited about. It's essentially saying, you can do all the right things and have faith and be didactic and search for peace or joy or truth, and regardless of all that, it may never show. You may never see it. Um, yay?
But for some reason it gives me hope. They strove for something, for Christ, and strove and strived and strove. (I looked it up. You can use strove OR strived.) And, they never got it. They waved at it from across a super-vast space. And they were exiles on the earth. They were eternally uncomfortable and never felt the peace of being at home.
But still, this verse makes me feel clean. Cause even if they only greeted their Prize from afar off, they did see Him. They saw the warmth in His eyes, and the truth in His hand, and the peace in His gaze.
AND, best part: they had a reason to live. It may have looked illegitimate to those who saw them die before this unrevealed something came to fruition, but it wasn't. They were ransomed from futility. This is one of my favorite themes, if you will, of Christianity: We are ransomed from our futile ways (1 Peter 1:18-19). And, we are called to no longer walk in them (Ephesians 4:17).
And that, baby doll, is why I love the rest of this little Bit-O-Hebrews (That is a play on Bit-O-Honey).
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 11:14-16.
What I'm saying is that I want in on that.