There is a strange tension in following Jesus.

We are called to be fully present here. To love our neighbour. To build, plant, serve, create, show up. And yet we are reminded, over and over again, that this is not our home. That all of this is only temporary.

We are sojourners. Travellers. Passing through. Headed home.

If we forget that, life gets heavy very quickly.

We start accumulating without noticing. More things. More comfort. More security. More knowledge. More experiences. We begin living as if permanence is the goal and fullness is something we can achieve by stacking enough of the right moments and things together.

But Jesus sends His disciples out with a very different posture.

You don’t need a lot of equipment. You are the equipment… Travel light.”
Matthew 10, The Message

That line confronts the way we naturally want to live.

Because we want backups. Safety nets. Extra baggage. Insurance plans for our insurance plans. We want enough stored up to feel important.

But the Kingdom posture is lighter than that.

Daily bread.
A modest place.
Gentle conversation.
Quiet exits.
No scenes.
No striving for comfort.

Just presence, obedience, and dependence.

Travel light.

This hit me hard when we were on a hike in New Zealand.

After a long and fairly brutal day on the Pouakai Crossing doing 25km and 1000m of elevation, we arrived at the Pouakai Tarns. It is a breathtaking place. The kind of view that makes you stop talking without realising you have stopped talking.

Except we were not alone.

We had come the long way across to here, but for a spot still two and a half hours from any trailhead, it was packed. Ripped jeans. People in slides. Selfies. Everyone lining up to take the exact photo they had seen online countless times before.

And something in me felt off.

So we turned around and left.

Not because people were there, but because it felt like hardly anyone had come to experience the place.

They had come to collect it.

Another tick.
Another post.
Another “I’ve been there.”

And I realised how deeply that instinct lives in all of us.

We do not just collect things. We collect experiences. We collect moments. We collect achievements. We build little museums of our own lives and then walk through them hoping to feel something.

This is exactly why Facebook and Instagram work.

As if meaning can be accumulated in the sum of our photos.

But think about the disciples for just a minute.

Jesus sends them out with nothing. No extra gear. No backup plan. Travel light. Depend on God. Be present to people. Carry the Kingdom, not baggage.

And even they came back buzzing.

“Lord, even the demons submit to us in your name!”

They had stories. Moments. Proof. Evidence that something incredible had happened through them. You can almost hear the excitement in their voices. They had something to show for the journey.

It's a simple trap but an effective one. You are what you have done. 

So Jesus gently redirects them.

“Do not rejoice that the spirits submit to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven.”

In other words, do not turn what happened into something you collect.

Do not build your sense of meaning on the moments.

Do not post this one to Instagram.

Because what matters was never what you did out there.

What matters most is who you already are.

Your name is written in heaven.

That is where your meaning lives.

That is why you can travel light.

Peter calls us foreigners and exiles. Paul says our citizenship is in heaven. The writer of Hebrews says we are looking for a city that is to come.

This world is meaningful and important, but it is not permanent.

Only temporary.

And when you really believe that, something changes in you.

You hold things more loosely.
You stop chasing every upgrade.
You stop feeling like you deserve what everyone else gets.
You stop needing to win every argument.
You stop clinging to comfort as if it is the prize.

You become available.

Available to love.
Available to serve.
Available to speak.
Available to leave.

Jesus tells His disciples not to make a scene when they are rejected. Not to force doors open. Not to cling to places where they are not welcome.

Quietly withdraw. Shrug your shoulders. Keep moving.

Because this is not home.

There is a holy freedom in that.

You can be kind without being controlling.
You can be present without being toxic.
You can be generous without being anxious.

You can travel light because you know you are eventually headed home.

The irony is that the lighter you live here, the more effective you become here. Because you are not distracted by the weight of trying to build permanence in a place that was never meant to be permanent.

You are simply available to the Kingdom.

Only temporary.

And that is not depressing. It is deeply hopeful.

Because if this is temporary, then the disappointments are temporary. The injustice is temporary. The weariness is temporary. The misunderstandings are temporary. Even the suffering is temporary.

And what is coming is not.

We can live lightly because we have deep meaning in who God says we are.

Our names are written in heaven.

So we do not have to collect this world to feel like our lives matter.

We can walk through it like travellers.

Living light. Headed home.

All of this is only temporary.