Home is a big word, isn’t it? It encompasses so many emotions, carrying us back to our earliest memories. It spans from there all the way to the present as part of our deeply personal history.
Not everyone can look back and remember a warm, safe, and stable place filled with happy times. If this describes your experience, it may bring back hard and painful memories of other people’s choices that affected your life and left scars. But while we’re thinking together right now in this time and place, let’s leave the past and look beyond what was, to what can be. Healing that’s deeper than the scars with God’s help, transforming your life one day at a time now – and forever.
Recently, I’ve been thinking about the meaning of home even more, especially in the middle of the holiday season and Christmas is coming. In my life, I’ve moved a lot. I used to travel a lot. I wanted to get out and explore the world and take on big challenges, and I have! In the process, I never really “settled down.” I’m also the last leaf on my family tree without a place to return to this time of year. I haven’t been living comfortably for 20+ years in a home on a cul-de-sac with a pool (although I had one of those). I moved across the country from where I grew up and put down roots several years at a time, but not long enough to establish a “permanent home.” Those of you who come from military families or have a spouse whose work involved moving multiple times can relate.
But looking back, I see that my true home was never in a building. They come and go. It was inside me. It’s wherever I am. It may sound a bit wackadoodle, but I say to my dog Buddy when we’re driving somewhere in the car that “Home is where we are. We’re here together, so it’s home.” This thought works anywhere you may be with your family, the special people (or pets :)) in your life too. Say it to yourself or better yet, say it out loud when you’re together!
Home isn’t made of lumber, roofing, pipes or the stuff inside it. That’s a house. Home is different. It’s where love lives. It can become a mansion inside you that grows bigger and bigger. It can have room for anyone and everyone you meet who needs a place to be loved and safe and cared about with compassion. Don’t we need more of this today instead of boxes with walls that keep people out?
That’s what Jesus came to show us at Christmas.
When we receive the greatest gift ever given that is only His to give – forgiveness of our sins and eternal life – we can add another dimension to our understanding of home. As believers, Jesus makes His home with us in our hearts. The Apostle Paul puts this together for us in Ephesians 3:14-20 (NLT):
“When I think of all this, I fall to my knees and pray to the Father, the Creator of everything in Heaven, and on earth.
I pray that from His glorious, unlimited resources He will empower you with inner strength through His Spirit.
Then Christ will make His home in your hearts as you trust in Him. Your roots will grow down into God’s love and keep you strong.
And may you have the power to understand, as all God’s people should, how wide, how long, how high, and how deep His love is.
May you experience the love of Christ, though it is too great to understand fully. Then you will be made complete with all the fullness of life and power that comes from God.
Now all glory to God, who is able, through His mighty power at work within us, to accomplish infinitely more than we might ask or think.“
As believers, after this life we will change our address from here to Heaven. The home within our heart will go with us to a far better one. Our true home is in Heaven, infinitely beyond what we can imagine. Forever with our Heavenly Father, His Son Jesus, and the Holy Spirit. So put up those Christmas lights, decorate the tree, light some candles, and turn up the Christmas music. We have a lot to celebrate!
RESET HIGHER: Are you more focused on a house or home today?
You may not be able to choose the house you grew up in or the place where you live today, but you CAN choose to make your life a home with Jesus who will always love and be with you.
