My eternal home

Yesterday someone asked about our move, then said, “When all is in order, then it will feel like home.” I told her that the first time I saw it, even before we made an offer, this place seemed like home. However, today’s reading reminds me of something Jesus said:

Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me. In my Father’s house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also. (John 14:1–3)

Years ago, I was grumbling about tedious housework. God used these verses to remind me that my Savior knew all about homemaking. He was building a most glorious place — a forever home with no sorrows, no bad memories, no troubles or tears. My task is not quite like that, but knowing He is doing this replaced my grumbling with a glad heart.

Today I read it again with joy, also realizing another parallel. For the past few weeks, our home has been upside-down, not just this one we are now working on to settle in, but the former one that went through a whirlwind of decluttering and downsizing. We are still doing that homemaking and even though I am an organized person, these rooms do not look like it — yet.

Apply that to the world around us. Contrary to many thoughts about ‘heaven’ and it being ‘out there somewhere’ the Bible says God’s people will experience eternal life in a restored new home here:

For behold, I create new heavens and a new earth, and the former things shall not be remembered or come into mind. (Isaiah 65:17)
For as the new heavens and the new earth that I make shall remain before me, says the Lord, so shall your offspring and your name remain. (Isaiah 66:22)
But according to his promise we are waiting for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells. (2 Peter 3:13)
Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. (Revelation 21:1)

The NT also says this odd thing about where I live now:

But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus… (Ephesians 2:4–6)

In a spiritual sense, I am already home, seated with Jesus in an eternal place. While the sense of this is hard to explain, it does describe the reality that this being at home with Him is experienced before actually getting there. I know where that home is, just like I knew this new address was my home before we actually purchased it and moved in. And it is perfect for us right now, even though there are boxes to empty, touch-ups needed, pictures to hang, and furniture that is not quite in the right place. It is still already home.

PRAY: Jesus, the sense of being home is lovely regarding this physical house, and much like the sense of knowing where my heavenly home is and what it will be like. I am so blessed to know that You, the perfect Homemaker, are preparing a place for me, a place perfect in its design and layout, but even more so because it is where You are — and I will be with You, perfection personified, for eternity.

A life both meaningless and abundant . . . ?

 

 

READ Ecclesiastes 1–4

After reading Revelation, this book has the potential to heap on more depressing thoughts. Age and the brevity of life can bring negatives such as, “What is the point of life?”

The author of Ecclesiastes asks the same questions. He was the wisest man alive and says wisdom is meaningless because wise or foolish, both come to the same end. I’m not sure I want to keep reading. Yet the Spirit moves me on.

Solomon also says self-indulgence is vanity and meaningless as is living wisely. That is, I can be proud of not being a fool, but pride is foolish. I can be healthy and prosperous because of wisdom, yet that also will end when I die. As for the things that I enjoy, observations tell me that age may mean the end of tending to our home, cooking meals, enjoying my family, writing about Jesus, making quilts, or remembering much of anything. Solomon concludes that work is meaningless — yet he adds another thought:

I hated all my toil in which I toil under the sun, seeing that I must leave it to the man who will come after me, and who knows whether he will be wise or a fool? Yet he will be master of all for which I toiled and used my wisdom under the sun. This also is vanity. So I turned about and gave my heart up to despair over all the toil of my labors under the sun, because sometimes a person who has toiled with wisdom and knowledge and skill must leave everything to be enjoyed by someone who did not toil for it. ☹ This also is vanity and a great evil. What has a man from all the toil and striving of heart with which he toils beneath the sun? For all his days are full of sorrow, and his work is a vexation. Even in the night his heart does not rest. This also is vanity. There is nothing better for a person than that he should eat and drink and find enjoyment in his toil. This also, I saw, is from the hand of God, for apart from him who can eat or who can have enjoyment? For to the one who pleases him God has given wisdom and knowledge and joy, but to the sinner he has given the business of gathering and collecting, only to give to one who pleases God. This also is vanity and a striving after wind. (Ecclesiastes 2:18–26)

This is better news in that God puts joy in the heart of those who belong to Him, joy in the doing, joy in all those things that eventually come to nothing. I look at my fabric stash and realize His joy when creating something out of it, and even greater joy when giving that creation to someone else who, for the present time, needs it.

Solomon goes on to talk about there being a season or time for everything. He says, “I perceived that there is nothing better for them than to be joyful and to do good as long as they live; also that everyone should eat and drink and take pleasure in all his toil—this is God’s gift to man.” (Ecclesiastes 3:12–13) And I perceive that also. Apart from faith in Jesus Christ and the joy that comes as His gracious gift, what is the point? None of it will last.

This reading points to the evil in the world and the inevitability of death to all, both humans and beasts. There is “nothing better” than being able to rejoice in our work and not be concerned what happens after life is over. The author does condemn self-centered motivations for work that make it even a deeper vanity. Toil for personal gain becomes “toil without pleasure” and it too will end.

The bottom line from these four chapters is a wonder —I can know all this and yet rest in the goodness of God and be joyful; joyful in tending my home, cooking meals, enjoying my family, writing about Jesus, making quilts, and remembering what He puts on my mind — living in the NOW, not in the inevitability of it all ending and having very little impact on my world or eternity. Such is the grace of God. And such is the wonder of Christ’s promises reflected in His Word:

 . . . I came that they may have life and have it abundantly. (John 10:10)

(He) is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us. (Ephesians 3:20)

Life may be a meaningless vanity and even those who know Jesus realize it’s brevity and even wonder, “What’s the point?” but we also experience an abundance of peace and joy and the richness of knowing and walking with our Savior — and having the assurance of being with Him forever.