Call it an answered prayer or genetic wiring, but fortunately my children never took to sleeping on the ground in tents. My son conned me into going camping twice. The first time because he had seen it on a cartoon. The second because he was convinced that we could stop on the way home at his favorite breakfast place. After explaining to him that we could sleep at home, wake up at our leisure and take the entire family out for a morning meal, he never asked again. Not to go camping anyway.

    I’m not knocking the idea of sleeping on the hard ground under a canvas shelter. It’s a great activity for some. Just not me. I lie awake restless the entire night, waiting for a suitable hour for which to break camp. Five a.m. I think is sufficient. It takes days for my neck and back to recover under the supervision of my sleep-by-numbers mattress. I’d just rather be at home.

    The Apostle Paul, a tent maker by trade, compared this life we live on earth to one of my camping adventures when he wrote, “For while we are in this tent, we groan and are burdened, because we do not wish to be unclothed but to be clothed with our heavenly dwelling...” (2 Cor. 5:4).

    There lies within all of us, believer and non, a desire for something more of this life. Our aching decaying bodies, our emotional mood swings, our burdened hearts, are all a reminder to us that we are not home. Consciously or subconsciously, each of us longs for something better. We are camping, and have not arrived at the doorstep of our eternal dwelling.

    Knowing that these ‘tents’ we live in can’t shield us from the anxieties, frustrations and pains of this life, Jesus said He would prepare a permanent home, decorated with the peace and presence of God, for all who would come to Him through repentance and faith (John 14). Don’t make the mistake of staying ‘outside’ forever.