“Nowhere Man” is a Beatle’s song that begins with the words, “He’s a Real Nowhere Man, Sitting in His Nowhere Land, Making All His Nowhere Plans for Nobody.” It then goes on to ask the question, “Isn’t he a bit like you and me?” I was that nowhere man for many years - Living in nowhere land, going nowhere and living a life of empty futility. But now, I am a “Somewhere Man” passing through that same nowhere land.
When I look at the world around me, I see how “nowhere” it really is apart from the gospel. As the song says, the vast majority are truly “nowhere men” living in a “nowhere land” making “nowhere plans” for nobody. All of their nowhere plans have absolutely nothing to do with the will of God or His purposes in the world. Billions of nowhere men have come and gone throughout history. During their brief sojourn on planet earth, they go about their daily business consumed with the cares of this life while the world keeps spinning on its axis going nowhere in circles. It doesn't matter how purpose driven they are, how high achievers they are or how high they set the bar. It will all burn in the end. They have invested their time, their talents and energy into their nowhere plans that are going nowhere. They do not have the slightest clue about the sheer futility of the nowhere land they have invested their lives in. It is all as Solomon said, “Vanity of vanities, all is vanity!”
The sheer variety and complexity of all their nowhere plans and priorities lead me to the soul-searching question, “What does it profit a man to gain the whole world and lose his soul?” Even so, all the nowhere men go about their business oblivious to reality of who they really are, where they really are or where they are really going in the end.
But, like Abraham, I became a “Somewhere Man” in 1969 when I surrendered my life to Him. From that point onward I have been following in the pioneering footsteps of Father Abraham who obeyed the call of God, left the comfortable security of his familiar surroundings and set forth to find a heavenly city even though he didn’t know “where he was going.” (Hebrews 11:8) He was “in the world but not of the world”. “By faith he dwelt in the land of promise as in a foreign country.” While he sojourned there “he waited for the city ...whose builder and maker is God.” (Hebrews 11:9 &10) He was the father of all the “somewhere men” in this nowhere land who would follow his faithful example.
Like all the “somewhere men” before me, I am just a pilgrim passing through this nowhere land. I will always be an alien, a foreigner, an outcast, and a refugee. I am just a stranger in a strange land who is so grateful that He made me into a “Somewhere Man” even though I still have to finish my sojourn in “Nowhere Land”. So, with His leading, I now make my somewhere plans for somewhere men who will soon be going to somewhere land like me.
He told me that He has gone to prepare a heavenly place for me there where my address will be somewhere with Him forever.
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