Hebrews 11:16 · World English Bible
But now they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed of them, to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them.
Be in this world as a stranger or a traveler: home is somewhere else The Prophet's words change how a person holds their life here. They stop waiting for this place to finally feel like home, so its letdowns lose most of their sting.
From the Sufism reading below.
The same verse, read by one tradition.
SUFISM
Be in this world as a stranger or a traveler: home is somewhere else The Prophet's words change how a person holds their life here. They stop waiting for this place to finally feel like home, so its letdowns lose most of their sting. Feeling out of step with everyone around them becomes ordinary, even expected, instead of proof that something has gone wrong.
Shawq: Longing Longing, in this teaching, works like homesickness. Getting more of what is here does not settle it, and comfort tends to make it louder. Someone carrying that ache keeps walking toward a home they have never seen, because the wanting feels more solid to them than anything they could hold.
Zuhd: Doing without the world Al-Ghazali describes the world's grip on the heart quietly loosening. A person keeps their job, their meals, their friends, and stops needing any of it to be the point. The old life still sits there with the door open, and going back stops looking like a rescue.
Whoever comes to God walking, God comes to him running: the reaching is answered from the other side The Prophet passed this on as God's own words. It meets the person who suspects their reaching is one sided, or too small to register, or a little embarrassing. One step toward God is answered by something faster and gladder coming the other way, and being wanted back changes how a person walks.
Rajā': Hope Al-Ghazali compares hope to a farmer who has planted and now waits for the harvest. The waiting rests on ground already prepared, so it holds steady on days when nothing seems to be moving. A person can be nowhere near the end and still be settled about it, because the arrival was arranged by someone other than them.
Sufism lens
If one step of yours were met by something running toward you, how would you walk?
The grasping after more is named as the real trouble, and contentment as the only thing that ever ends it. Adding to what you have here does not settle what you are actually missing.
Craving is described as the thirst that drinking never finishes. Comfort does not quiet it; it usually makes the thirst easier to hear.
The teaching says the day is short and the work is long, and that you are not asked to finish it, only not to walk away from it. A person can be far from the end and still be at peace about the end.
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Sufism