Loving the Home You're In

The shiny images of beautiful homes we see online or in our own cities and towns tweak something in our hearts. It’s not that beautiful homes are wrong (they aren’t). The issue lies in how we allow our possessions (in this instance, our homes) to interact with our souls. The twinge of contempt we feel when we see another person’s lovely kitchen isn’t about the kitchen. It’s about discontent.

The Bible talks extensively about contentment and its enemy: discontent—which happens to be close friends with envy: “And [Jesus] said to them, ‘Take care, and be on your guard against all covetousness, for one’s life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions’” (Luke 12:15).

Jesus’ counsel in Luke 12 connects covetousness with an abundance of possessions. When we desire what others have, we reveal what our heart deems most valuable in that moment: things. And there are few places as susceptible to covetousness as the home.

Discontentment destroys a good, beautiful, and true homelife. Only those whose eyes can see beauty in the most average, mundane places will find fulfillment in the regular days of home.

The key to contentment is a strong faith that God will take care of us. We can be free of the love of money and be fully content in the homes we have when we are confident that God will not leave us. You don’t need the Instagram house to be loved by Him.

God has given each of us a little something—a little corner of a house or perhaps a large and sprawling abode. Whatever He has given is meant to be loved and stewarded well, then shared with others so they can experience His goodness too. As we live out a content, grateful posture, we often find that the things we thought so ugly, so inconvenient, and so subpar have worked a change in us that a perfect kitchen never could have accomplished.

Maybe the home you have is the kind Jesus would have liked to visit. Can you love it, just as it is?

Reflect

Do you struggle with discontent in the home you have? Reflect on Philippians 4:11−13 as you prayerfully ask God to help you with your discontent.