In the fifth part of his series focussing on people on the move, the Rev Richard Baxter highlights the importance of being ready to move.

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MY great-aunt used to live in a small terraced house in West Belfast.

It had been her family home since it was built in the early years of the twentieth century. One night in the 1970s she was faced with two men at her door wearing balaclavas. They told her that if she valued her safety she would be away by the following evening.

After about seventy years in that street, she had to flee at a day’s notice with whatever possessions she could carry. Her beloved piano, and many other things she treasured were left behind. My greataunt was forced out because she wasn’t considered of the right faith to live in that place any more.

Many people from all communities suffered such intimidation in those days, and similar injustices still happen in many parts of the world now.

Often people who are on the move have little or no choice in the matter.

Usually people mark their territory because they intend to hold on to it. In some parts of Northern Ireland, where I grew up, the identity and allegiances of the people living in a particular street were often obvious. Flags hanging on lampposts, slogans on walls or the colour of the paint on the kerbstones were the territorial signals identifying whoever claimed that street.

My relative suffered for being in the wrong place.

The Israelites in Egypt, however, marked their territory not to keep it, but because they were about to leave it behind.

The story is in Exodus 12.21-28. On the night of the first Passover, when they were about to become people on the move, they were told that the door-posts of their homes should be marked with a sprig of hyssop dipped in the blood of the Passover lamb.

By this sign, the members of the community would be known, and spared the fate of those who had enslaved them. Those identified by this sign were the people who, at God’s command, were ready to get up and move.

It was vital that they were prepared. Store cupboards had to be empty, and a meal cooked which could be eaten at one sitting.

They would eat with shoes on their feet and a walking stick in hand.

When the moment came there would be no room for hesitation. Their territory in Egypt was marked, but only as a precursor to leaving it all behind and striking out for a new place God had planned for them. They marked the familiar but headed for the unknown.

People on the move cannot burden themselves down with too many possessions and encumbrances. Whether it was my great-aunt leaving her home with only a few of her most prized items, or the people of Israel packed up and ready to leave on Passover night, moving is as much about what we leave behind as what we take. In Hebrews 12.1, the writer encourages us to leave aside everything which holds us back, so we can run the race before us.

Yet God calls us to know where we begin so that He can lead us out to a new place. The journey may sometimes be uncomfortable – painful even – but often staying behind just isn’t an option.

The Rev Richard Baxter is minister at Fort William: Duncansburgh MacIntosh linked with Kilmonivaig.