Your Home MattersShembull

Your Home Matters Because Place Matters

In my Father’s house are many dwelling places; if it were not so I would have told you; for I go to prepare a place for you.  -John 14:2

At creation, “the Lord God planted a garden toward the east in Eden; and there He placed the man whom He had formed” (Genesis 2:8). Of all the geographic options on the globe, God chose one spot as home for Adam and Eve.  We know that Eden was a specified place with borders because after Adam and Eve sinned, God drove them out and stationed cherubim on guard so they couldn’t return.

Home as a place was also a significant theme in Jesus’ last words to His disciples before He went to the cross. He talked to them about His departure and described their future home: “In my Father’s house are many dwelling places; if it were not so I would have told you; for I go to prepare a place for you” (John 14:2).

As intended, these words of Jesus impart great hope and comfort. Think about God having a house and inviting you to live there with Him! I feel loved and cared for at the sound of a place just for me. Do you too?

Having a place to come home to, a place to belong, gives value to your life and to your children’s. It doesn’t matter how big or small, how fancy or plain: a tiny apartment in New York, a hutong in China, a tin shack in Africa, or an upper middle class ‘mansion.’ What matters is that you and your children have a home and each other.

When we understand the unseen value of home, we worry less about how clean or up to date our place of residence is. And focus more on home as the nucleus of meaning and stability for all who dwell within.

Our experience of home and place today is a preparation for a better home in the future. Our earthly comfort of home defines the concept of a future home awaiting us in heaven.

Be encouraged. Your home, even with its many imperfections, is still a crucially important place.