Last night we sat in a pizza parlor, we two. We ate pepperoni pizza, she ate half of my slice, and I ripped the paper from around my straw into a million pieces. A nervous habit, though I wasn't nervous. We talked about the seven deadly sins and things we like to smell. We talked about how hard it's been to break into this culture, but how grateful we are for a suitemate who loves us as much as the people at home do. Then we were a little silent, soaking up the pizza and the companionship. A song we both love came on the radio: Home.

I remember driving somewhere back in New York this past summer. The same song came on the radio and I remember thinking that there are always songs which define seasons of our lives; I expected that one to define the upcoming season of my life. I've always been a homebody, prone to homesickness of the worst kind, and hungry for the things that make me feel like I'm not going anywhere quickly.

But last night, in the pizza parlor, in this town I'm trying to make into a home while missing my real one a lot, when that song came through the speakers I wasn't feeling as lonely for home as I thought I'd be. I'm learning what it meant, five years ago, when Eldon Wilson laid his hands on my shoulders and said: You will be a representative of the King of Kings, an ambassador. Whatever you do, whatever activity you're involved in, you're representing the Kingdom of God. Even ambassadors go from country to country, they're not there as tourists, as immigrants of the land where they are, because when their tour of duty is over, they're going home. Keep the culture of heaven, do not be inculturated, do not become an immigrant to an early kingdom.

I'm learning what it means to be so consumed with the Kingdom of heaven, with the culture of heaven, with the permanency of Heaven, that this worldly kingdom has little value to me. I'm learning what it wonderful thing it is to know that the center of God's will for my life is what I see around me, in me, through me.