Recently Dee and I have been watching some David Attenborough documentaries. The last set that we watched were focussed on migration. Sharks that travel to a remote Hawaiian Islands to attack fledgling albatross chicks attempting their first flight, salmon turning bright red, and braving Alaskan bears, to reach their spawning grounds, lay their eggs and die, elephants marching across China in search of water. Migration is a big part of the animal kingdom. But one of the biggest migrations of all wasn’t even mentioned; that of humans.
I recently read that it is estimated that the global diaspora currently sits at about 350 million people. Were the diaspora a country, they would be the third largest in the world.1 Even outside of mass migration of refugees, those who move countries for work, or overseas missionaries etc., most people spend at least some period(s) of their life migrating, even within their own country. Whether moving to a new city for university, getting married and moving to a new part of the country, or looking for work in a new town, at some point we are likely to feel the rootlessness of our lives.
With this feeling can come one of two pitfalls. On the one hand, we may be tempted to fight hard against the push of rootlessness, only being willing to invest in relationships that we are “certain” are going to last, seeking to build, long-lasting stable support-structures, trying our hardest to have a settled life, where everything is predictable, and we can relax, knowing that we are “home”. We may forget that this is not our ultimate destination in its current form.
On the other hand, those of us who embrace a more migratory pattern of life can become so future minded that we barely allow our feet to touch the ground and leave an imprint. We don’t invest deeply in things where we are, because our eyes are so fixated on the horizon. We think we are making progress with speed, but when we look behind, there is nothing of lasting value left over.
But the Biblical answer is not to suppress our migratory nature, nor to embrace it to the exclusion of investing in this world. The vast majority of the Scriptures were written to, by, or about, migrating people. Whether exiles from the garden, slaves in Egypt, pilgrims heading to feasts, exiles in Babylon, or the persecuted church and city-hopping Apostles; God’s people have always been on the move. One could maybe even go so far as to say that it is the normal human condition.
And perhaps even more stunning, is the fact that our God is a migratory God. He is the one who promised to be with the Patriarchs as they roamed the land he had promised. He is the One who asked for a tent that he might dwell with his people on the move. He is the One who would not be bound by four walls of a temple but was far more pleased to dwell with his people where they worshipped him. He is the One who became incarnate and roamed the towns of Israel with nowhere to lay his head. He is the God who dwells in the midst of his people, the church, regardless of where they are, or where they go. He stays still no more than we do.
Recently I was reading Genesis 26, and the Biblical challenge of investment-focussed migration stood out to me. Here is one of the few stories focussing on Isaac. It begins with God affirming to Isaac his promise to give the land to him and his descendants. Then, despite the famine, Isaac is warned not to go to Egypt (as his father once did). Rather he should sojourn in the land.
He obeys, but instead follows in the footsteps of another of his father’s follies, pretending Rebekah is his sister. The matter is resolved, and we see that despite famine conditions, despite these other people living in the land, Isaac is blessed by the Lord and reaps a hundredfold. (v.12)
So, Abimelech tells Isaac to get lost. He urges him along out of the vicinity. And this is where the irony begins. Abimelech twice in this story tells Isaac to move along, and yet these two incidents are bookended by God’s promise to Isaac that it isn’t Abimelech’s land at all… it is his. (v.3 & v. 23).
So what is Isaac’s reaction? Does he just flee somewhere else to sit and settle, and find an unused space in a foreign land where he and his family can put down roots without fear of interruption from the enemy? Does he fatalistically resign himself to a migratory existence, and refuse to do anything meaningful with his life?
No. He digs wells. He starts by reopening his father’s wells. Then he starts digging some of his own. This chapter is full of Isaac following his father’s footsteps, and it’s no surprise. After all, it was by living in his father’s tents that he became an inheritor of the promise. He learned it from him. He had seen his father deal with the Abimelech of his day (Gen 21). He had seen wells being dug by an old man. He had watched as his aged father had planted a tamarisk tree and called upon the name of the Everlasting God. And then, he continued his sojourning (v33-34)
Why would an old man dig wells? Why would he plant a tree that he would never live to see the good of? A tamarisk tree is one of the best for providing a cooling shade, but Abraham would never sit under it. Yet Abraham understood something of the pilgrim life. He understood that things only have value in light of the God who is everlasting. He understood that when the eternal God has made a promise, then the only correct response is to use our time to invest deeply in this life for coming generations to reap the benefit of the promises he has given. Who would sit under that tamarisk tree? Maybe Isaac after a long day digging wells. Maybe descendants hundreds of years later would enjoy its shade.
Why did Isaac dig wells? As I mentioned, the events of his being moved off the land are bookended by God’s promise of the land, and his blessing. Isaac was also old when he was at this business. He wasn’t going to be drinking from all of these wells. But his descendants would.
And then, amazingly, when Abimelech comes to Isaac seeking peace, he is welcomed freely by the man that he pestered about being on the land. What was going on in Isaac’s mind this whole time?
Isaac understood something that we constantly need reminded of. Abimelech could do what he wished. He could make Isaac’s life a mess in terms of settledness. He could try to stop the investment that Isaac made. But the reality was, that the land was not Abimelech’s. It was Isaac’s. The real guest in the land was Abimelech. Isaac was comfortable in his confidence that the land was his. He would dig wells in every place he went, investing in that land for the generations to come, knowing that God had promised many descendants, so they would need a lot of water! He dug wells for the future, because the land was his. He could welcome his adversary, because he did not have to fight for the land. It already belonged to him, albeit with a future redemption date.
This is the how our sojourner’s lives ought to look. Like salmon making a trek all the way to Alaskan lakes to simply die after spawning, after all their efforts to avoid death on the way, so we Christians, pilgrims that we are, ought to live our migratory lives, not for ourselves, to think that settling down with deep roots is the goal, but that in planting trees and digging wells, investing in future generations as we weave our way through this life, we are declaring that we believe in a greater promise.
But there is more. I think Isaac’s confidence in this passage is summed up well in Psalm 37:
“Fret not yourself because of evildoers;
be not envious of wrongdoers!
2 For they will soon fade like the grass
and wither like the green herb.3 Trust in the Lord, and do good;
dwell in the land and befriend faithfulness.
4 Delight yourself in the Lord,
and he will give you the desires of your heart…8 Refrain from anger, and forsake wrath!
Fret not yourself; it tends only to evil.
9 For the evildoers shall be cut off,
but those who wait for the Lord shall inherit the land…18 The Lord knows the days of the blameless,
and their heritage will remain forever;
19 they are not put to shame in evil times;
in the days of famine they have abundance…29 The righteous shall inherit the land
and dwell upon it forever…34 Wait for the Lord and keep his way,
and he will exalt you to inherit the land;
you will look on when the wicked are cut off.”– Psalm 37 (various)
Isaac looked on at Abimelech, knowing that the land was ultimately his. He did not fret when Abimelech moved him along, he did not react in anger. He was confident that the land belonged to him, because the promise of the Everlasting God would outlast the plans of evil man.
Which brings me to the point that really warms my heart. Abraham will himself one day sit under tamarisk trees in Israel. Isaac will himself one day drink from the wells of that land.
Some of us are more prone to being sojourners than others, though as I said earlier, it does seem to be a natural human condition, ever since our exile from the garden. But for all of us, rootlessness is hard. We long for stability, we want permanent investment, permanent relationships.
My sister’s co-workers in another country were recently warned that they were being watched by the secret police. It reminded me that as missionaries we have such fragile existences in our countries of service.
Millions of people are run out of homelands due to war or persecution. In my own adopted country, there is a refugee camp of over 1 million people. Dee and I started reading a children’s book about this place with a language tutor. The little girl in the story missed her homeland greatly.
Many people in Ireland have to move regularly because of the housing crisis, being unable to afford rent, or because landlords are selling houses. Their children have grown up in one town, but circumstances are driving them to start over in a new place far from “home”.
One of our teammate’s parents lived in this land and served here for decades. They will probably never return here to the land they love and have sacrificed a lifetime for, because of health reasons.
To all of the above, to all who are longing for a home that is out of reach, to those who are forced to be in a place other than that which you have chosen, I urge you, have the same confidence as Abraham and Isaac. Know this, that your feet shall tread that soil again. We shall inherit the earth. Governments, corporations, health or anything else, shall not keep you from placing your feet in those lands again. When the eschaton comes, and the new heavens and earth are unveiled, we shall walk those hills that we long for, we shall gaze at the sunsets we love. The promise is ours. These lands belong to no one else.
So, with that in mind, take confidence. This life is just getting the place ready, getting things in order for moving in, as it were. This confidence ought to keep us from the two dangers mentioned above, and instead drive us to invest deeply in future generations, while living temporarily and taking nothing for ourselves… for now.
Your feet shall tread this place again. And in that day, you shall dwell drink deeply from the wells that you dug, along with those who drank from it along the way. You shall sit in the shade of the trees you planted, with those who sat in its shade long after you were gone. So, take heart. If you are intent on digging wells, then your migration is not in vain in the Lord. We dig because the promise is true. The everlasting God has declared it so, “The meek shall inherit the earth.”
- I saw this in Chris Howles’ Mission Hits email, which I recommend subscribing to. https://www.fromeverynation.net/mission-hits ↩︎
Imitators of Those 
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