712, 131, 121, 441, 507, 1n225.

This string of random numbers is not random to me. The numbers are the house numbers of addresses where I’ve lived, beginning with my childhood home: 712 South Kenwood Ave, and ending with our current house number in Winfield. And I am well below the average number of times Americans move in their lifetime, which is 11.7 times.

Ellen Barry, writing for The New York Times (July 17, 2024), featured a study of adults in Denmark who moved frequently in childhood and concluded that “adults who moved frequently in childhood have significantly more risk of suffering from depression than their counterparts who stayed put in community.” It also found that income—whether high or low—didn’t make a difference if you didn’t move in childhood. “Being a ‘stayer’ was protective for your health.” Frequent moves cost social capital, and one of the biggest costs is community.

Just watch an episode of House Hunters International. The new homeowners will wax eloquent about their new home, the view, proximity to restaurants, and then admit that it has been hard to find community and make friends. After one such episode, I said to my husband. “That wouldn’t be our problem. We’d find a church right away.”

As followers of Christ, we are “stayers.” According to the Apostle Paul, we are fellow citizens, members of the household of God, being built together into a dwelling place. We are a body. We’re partners, brothers and sisters. We’re rooted in him. Talk about being a “stayer.”

As followers of Christ, we are also on the move. From Abraham to John on the Island of Patmos, Scripture pushes us beyond the here and now to the now and ever shall be, world without end.

To get from here to there, we need to be like Abraham. He was a mover. Though unsure of his destination, he was more than sure of the One who promised. We need to be like Abraham and his descendants who acknowledged they were strangers and exiles on the earth—not stayers because “people who speak thus make it clear that that are seeking a homeland.” (Hebrews 11:14) The writer of Hebrews continues pointing out that “if they had been thinking of that land from which they had gone out, they would have had opportunity to return.” (11:15)

And that’s the tension we experience as “stayers” and “movers,” between our status as strangers and exiles and our longing to return to the good old days. The good old days might not be as calendar specific as we think, but instead reflect our longing for days when tears or pain or regrets didn’t intrude on our lives.

My husband points out that these longings are fitting longings for strangers and exiles on this earth—longings that reflect our heart’s desire for that better place, where tears are wiped away from every eye, where pain and mourning don’t exist.

And those good old days, the former things we yearned for on this earth? They will have given way to the new heaven and new earth, where we find our homeland and settled rest, “no more a stranger, nor a guest, but like a child at home.” (“My Shepherd Will Supply My Need,” v. three.)

But like a stayer at home at last.