You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they rest in you. – Augustine (354-430)
The eternal God is our dwelling place, and underneath are the everlasting arms” – Deuteronomy 33:27
When God speaks to us that He is our dwelling place, He is telling us that He is our home. As Christians, we often think about the reality about heaven, and our lives in eternity with God. This of course is true, but God elevates this idea by saying “He Himself is our home,” and this statement is not dependent on our passing away from this life. God is our dwelling place today.
I have a friend who was a bi-vocational pastor. To help supplement his salary at his small church, he drove a school bus. For him, he saw opportunities to serve, and be a blessing to the families and children on his route. He was known by all as “Pastor John,” and he developed a lot of relationships with parents and students, having a chance to share the love of God and pray for people. As he was finishing his route one afternoon and dropping off the last teenage boy, the boy hesitated for a moment before getting off the bus. “Can we talk for a second?” he asked, in a shaky tone of his voice. Concerned, Pastor John replied, “Of course! Is everything okay?” The boy started by saying, “I don’t want to go home,” saying that everyday after school, he came home to an empty house. His dad and mom were working and wouldn’t be home for several hours, afterwhich there many things that the teenager shared about the discouragement of his life. This was a time of compassionate ministry as the pastor and the teenager spent a long time sitting on the bus talking, as John was drawing out the boy’s feelings and emotions, sharing the love of Jesus, and praying with him. Afterwards a lasting and meaningful relationship was established between the bus driving pastor and the teenager.
Every time I have the chance to speak in churches, I close in prayer, asking the Lord to bless the lives of people, and that every home will be a refuge, and a place of peace and rest, and that the people will delight in returning home. That’s the way it should be. Yet God wants us to also to find the place that He’s made a place in his heart for us – to be our eternal home. He’s calling us to Himself to reside, dwell, and rest in Him.
There’s no place like home.
There’s truly no place like home. Home is the place for family. It’s where relationships are able to thrive. Home is the place where we find rest at the end every day. Home is the place where grace and mercy are extended to us, because the people who love us the most are there. Home is the place where we find security and shelter. Home is the place where we are fed, nurtured, cleansed, and rested. In God, we find all of these things, based on our relationship with Christ based on His merits.
Within the walls of home, we relax without fear of rejection, and we can really be ourselves without pretence or performance. Likewise with God, we can confidently share with Him, all our difficulties, our fears, our failures, and disappointments. We can confess our sins to Him, knowing that He is forgiving and will “cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” (1 John 1:9). We can rest in the confidence that He delights in us – in that we are his sons and daughters. We are in God’s family, and he receives us in all of our imperfections, yet calling us deeper and to walk more closely, and purely with Him.
Finally, we know that resting at home is where we recharge and refresh, and then after our rest, we leave home day by day, to go to work or school. For us as Christians, we can find our rest and residence in God. From the position of rest, God calls us to go. We’re called to go into the world and do His work, and this is all from a posture of rest and relationship with Him. Thank you Lord Jesus for making your heart our eternal dwelling place.
Maybe you hear God calling you. “Come home.”
