You all know it. If you’ve read my blog ever or been my friend on Facebook for any amount of time, you know I have it: wanderlust, ‘a strong desire to travel’.

In the past, I didn’t care about traveling, or even think it was realistic. But all of that changed with one adventure to Chicago with my mom and step-dad. The days filled with aimless roaming around an unfamiliar city; the new tastes and smells and stores. I was only 16, and it was 4 day trip to Chicago, but I knew from the moment the wheels left the runway that I was a traveler.

When the opportunity arose to study abroad through Freed-Hardeman, I jumped at it. On the day I signed up, did I know anyone I would be living with in Italy for 3 months? Not one single soul. But I was excited, and I anxiously counted down the days and weeks and months until my arrival in Roma. And when I finally landed that fateful day in September, I was a different person than the Emily who’d left Tennessee just 15 hours prior. The travel bug, as they say, had bitten with a vengeance, and I never would be quite the same.

When I returned, and nearly every day sense, I’ve struggled with my wanderlust. Why do I long to be in a different, new place all the time? Why do I long to explore new cities and faces and languages? Why do ancient things fill my idle thoughts? Travel often consumes me, and sometimes I think it’s bad thing.

Sometimes it’s not.

Not being content with where you are is a Biblical principle. Paul told Christians that “our citizenship is in heaven, from which we also eagerly wait for the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ,” (Phil. 3:20). I shouldn’t be content to just live this life. I shouldn’t be content to simply exist on our gorgeous planet. I should long for more. I should eagerly wait for more. And that’s what my wanderlust is: wanting to experience more. Which is why, having a sense of wanderlust in my heart, so long as I’m living my life with the expectation of experiencing more when this life of wandering is over, isn’t necessarily a bad thing.

Sometimes it is, though.

You see, if I let my wanderlust make me long to go to Israel or London or Australia more than I want to go to heaven, it’s wrong. It’s bad. It’s, well, sinful. Before Paul said that our citizenship is in heaven, he said this, “Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended; but one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead,  I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.” (Phil 3:13-14). It wasn’t about where he’d been. It wasn’t even about where he was. It was all about where he was going.

To the Corinthians he would say this, “So we are always of good courage. We know that while we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord, for we walk by faith, not by sight. Yes, we are of good courage, and we would rather be away from the body and at home with the Lord. So whether we are at home or away, we make it our aim to please him” (2 Cor. 5:6-9, ESV). My heart should always long more for heaven than Paris or Switzerland or Greece. My heart should always long to be with the Lord, not in a new time zone.

So, sometimes I have wanderlust. Sometimes I’m bent on checking airline prices and Groupon getaways. That’s all fine and well so long as I let it remind me that I’m just a wanderer here anyway, but not so fine and well if it distracts me from preparing for my ultimate departure.