Praying as Pilgrims in a Passing World

The longer a believer walks with God, the more clearly he learns this truth: here we have no continuing city. There was a time, perhaps, when the world felt like home. Its comforts were familiar, its pursuits compelling, its securities, though fragile, enough to soothe our hearts for a while. But conversion changes the address of the soul. Our citizenship is transferred; our name is written in the registry of heaven, and the earth can no longer hold us in the same way. We remain in it, but we are no longer of it. We are, as Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob confessed, strangers and pilgrims on the earth, seeking a better country, that is, a heavenly one.

It is this pilgrim identity that reshapes our praying. A man who knows he is passing through does not spend his days fortifying a tent against the centuries. He will maintain it for the journey, yes, but his eyes are fixed on the destination. So too, when the Spirit makes us conscious that our time here is but a vapor, our petitions become less about anchoring ourselves in this passing scene and more about being fitted for the road ahead. We begin to pray, not for endless earthly ease, but for strength to walk well, for grace to endure the wind and rain, for wisdom to read the map of Providence when the way is hard to discern. Our focus shifts from preserving a comfortable inn to pressing on toward the city whose builder and maker is God.

Hebrews 13:14 lays this reality bare, “For here we have no continuing city, but we seek one to come.” The apostles lived with this conviction. It was not resignation, but anticipation, that marked their prayers. Paul could endure chains and still overflow in thanksgiving because he saw himself not as a prisoner of Rome but as an ambassador of Christ, temporarily stationed in a foreign land. Peter could urge suffering believers to rejoice because their trials were but for a little while in comparison with the glory that would follow. Such a perspective does not make us careless about life here; rather, it makes us careful to spend it in ways worthy of the One who has called us.

When a pilgrim prays, his requests are marked by a certain looseness toward this world. He does not despise food, shelter, or peace, but he does not anchor his hope in them either. He prays for daily bread with gratitude, knowing tomorrow he may be elsewhere. He prays for rulers and authorities so that the gospel may run without hindrance, not so that his earthly comforts will be undisturbed. He asks for healing, for provision, for deliverance, but always with the deeper plea, “Prepare me for the city to come. Fit me for the presence of my King.” His petitions are seasoned with longing, shaped by the sure knowledge that the journey will end soon and the destination will be worth every mile.

The pilgrim spirit also purifies our prayers from the subtle idolatry of permanence. It reminds us that no matter how carefully we build here, it will not stand forever. The homes we tend, the careers we pursue, the causes we champion, all of them will be folded into the pages of history. Only what is rooted in Christ will last. This awareness presses us to pray for fruit that remains: for souls to be won, for holiness to grow, for love to abound, for the gospel to be adorned by our lives. And when our prayers are thus aligned, they begin to echo the petitions of the apostles, who sought not the favor of the world but the favor of God upon His people until they reached home.

We do not yet walk the golden streets, but we walk toward them. Each step is one less between us and the city that cannot be shaken. Until then, our prayers are the pilgrim’s song, sometimes weary, sometimes buoyant, but always forward-looking. We ask, we seek, we knock, not as those desperate to secure a place here, but as those who already have a place prepared there. And with every request, we confess again: “Here we have no continuing city, but we seek one to come.”