Living as Exiles in a Strange Place: part 1

This week, I'm reflecting on the book of 1 Peter.  I was struck by the way that Peter addresses his readers.  He doesn't address them as a specific church, nor does he address an individual person or leader.  Instead he writes, Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, to the exiles...who have been chosen and destined by God the Father and sanctified by the Spirit to be obedient to Jesus Christ and to be sprinkled with his blood: (NRSV).  I don't know about you, but there are times where I feel this tension deep down in my soul.  It's a tension that wrestles with whether I'm out of place.  Don't get me wrong, there are times when I think that I fit in with the culture around me too much and find myself desiring the same things that most people desire.  But then there are other times when I wonder, what the heck am I doing here?  I feel so out of place or alone.  And then it hits me.  We are living as exiles.  When Christ gets a hold of us, and chooses us, and sanctifies us, we are destined to feel like exiles because we were created for something different; something better; a world without sin, and pain, and suffering.  Ecclesiastes says that God ...has set eternity in the human heart (TNIV).  So, I guess it's normal to feel out of place at times.  That doesn't mean we get to leave the world or withdraw from it into safe little Christian cliques.  Jesus, in John 17:15,18 prayed to his father, My prayer is not that you take them out of the world but that you protect them from the evil one...As you have sent me into the world I have sent them into the world (TNIV).  We are sent into the world to live as exiles.  More thoughts on this later in the week...