January, 2026 – A Far Country
I’ve traveled to many a-far country. I grew up in Maine on the Canadian border – and while that was not ‘far’ (to get to Canada), there have been several travels that took me a good distance from home. Between my third and fourth years of college, I travelled to Trinidad and Tobago – serving there with missionaries for three months.
The second year I was married, my husband and I traveled to Europe visiting many countries, including E. Germany which was under Communism at the time. Of all the places we visited in Europe, I think my favorite country was the one farthest away – Greece (including Corinth). And then, again, I visited England with a friend to minister with missionaries in Loughborough (with the Gujarati’s) and London (with Muslims) for a month.
And then, of course, I have spent much of the past twenty-five years in Eastern Europe, the ‘other’ land that I love, Romania. I am beyond blessed to have been born and raised in the United States of America! But, I am also beyond blessed that the Lord would ever choose me to be His eyes and heart, hands and feet in such a ‘far country’ – a place where everything is different.
There’s another ‘far country’ I’ve always kind of wondered about. That would be the ‘far country’ the Prodigal Son (in Luke 16) fled to after asking his father for his share of the inheritance. Nowhere that I can see in Scripture does it mention the specific name of that country. But still, I would like to know. It’s just one of those things that intrigues a curious mind – to picture where the ungrateful and quite greedy son spent his time. I’m thinking we’ll never know this side of Glory. And that’s okay, because each of us can have a ‘far country’ without its actually being a physical place.
A ’far country’ can be any separation from God. It can be that thing, person, place, circumstance that takes first place in our hearts – that place that God meant for Him to occupy. I have had many of those ‘far places’ in my heart. One of those ‘places’ was an obsession with beautiful, luxurious homes and the desire to have one. And this may sound silly to you, but another was with the Red Sox. I planned our meals (even holiday meals) around their TV play time. Spending way too much time with our local team crept in ever so silently. Long-story-short, it came to the point where I gave up indulging in my watching the team’s games. I know – you are thinking that that was ridiculous. But I had gone to a ‘far country’ in my heart and behavior – loving something more than I loved God or His needful place in my life. There have been other incidents/desires/people that have taken way too much room in my heart and had to be dealt with. What they were is not the issue – we have all had those – some still do. And that’s where the problem lies.
I have to keep check on my heart that Jesus has reign in every ‘room’. It serves us well to do our jobs to the best of our abilities – it is fun to have a hobby – to study and enjoy an instrument, but when it supersedes our love, service and devotion to our Master, it can become a problem. I’m not judging, but it seems that I see some infinitely more consumed with a plethora of things far more than a deep and committed love to the One Who loved us so much that we were all He thought about. I pray that in this New Year, 2026, starting with me, we will all be more concerned with Jesus’ becoming front and center in our lives – that our desire will be to ‘look’ like Him, think like Him, speak like Him, act and react like Him – that that will be what occupies are hearts and thoughts – not some ‘far country’. A most Blessed and Happy New Year to you all!!