Saturday, April 10, 2010

Making Room

I sit in the living room, looking out the window.
The birds sing as the sky lightens, over the sweet porches with their lightbulbs still glowing, and over the picket fences.

I thank God for this place where I live. Our once-unfurnished house now has belongings in every corner. I thank God for how He has filled us, the family inside the house, with hope, with joy, and cherished gifts of his Spirit. I thank God for how He has furnished our lives.

As we make plans to build a new home nearby, I thank God for the experience of living in this well-known, well-loved place. Our family remains thankful for all the comforts of the house we’ve shared for these many years. Yet even as we fondly live in this place, so familiar and very much home, we keep before us that we do have another place that we will go. We needfully acknowledge the limitations of where we are, to better appreciate where we are going.

I thank God also for the visualization, the expectation, of this place where we will live, one day when we move. As we’ve talked about it at length, it's a home that’s become a reality long before any piece of wood has been bought. Each time we revisit the topic, this place too becomes more and more familiar to us. And even though we’ve never walked there, it is a place already special to us.

We’ve made room for it in our minds.

We’ve had the opportunity to sit and talk with the architect, to examine it from every view that he provides. We’ve heard and shared his enthusiasm and excitement about what he has crafted for us.

We need to know that we’re going, and we need to know where we’ll be. But it’s a home that we will trust someone else to construct. We won’t place any portion of it, not a single timber or stone. All we will place is our trust, that someone else will put together what we need. We’ll also be trusting that someone to craft it well, to make it special.

I thank God for this hope, and I thank God for this life that we share.
I thank Him for how His presence has blessed our time here on this earth. My once uncharted life now has tasks and responsibilities that fill the moments. I thank God for how He has filled me with purpose. I thank God for how he has furnished our days.

We remain thankful for all the memories we cherish. Yet even as we recall that today is the day which the Lord has made, choosing to rejoice and be glad in it, we keep before us that we will have a life beyond this one. We needfully acknowledge the limitations of this world, to better appreciate the joys of the heaven that we will share.

As we make plans to spend eternity with God, I thank God for giving us this expectation. As we fellowship with each other and other Christians, paradise is a home that’s become part of our reality even now. Each time we revisit the topic, this place too becomes more and more familiar to us, and already more and more treasured.

We’ve made room for it in our hearts.

We’ve answered the invitation to prayer, taking the opportunity to sit and talk with the architect. Reading through the Word, we examine eternity from every view that God provides. In Scripture and in spirit, we’ve heard and shared his enthusiasm and excitement about what he has crafted for us.

Because this life ends, we know that we’re going. Because of His sacrifice, and the gracious revelation in His word, we know where we’re going. Acknowledging the quality of His work, it’s a place that we trust God to construct, and God alone. Our eternal welfare is not in our hands. We place our trust in God, for all our needs and our wants.

There’s light yet in this day. There’s day left to spend time with Him. Rest in Him. Abide in Him. And invite Him to abide in us.
Let us dwell on relationship with God.

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