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I've been thinking about home lately. The home Minnie made for us while the children were growing up. The home we had when the grandchildren were able to visit us very often. The home she and I had alone in Washington State for eleven years. And I'm thinking that home as God means for it to be should be a little taste of heaven while we're still yet so imperfect in this fallen world. We live among fallen creatures in a fallen world and sadly enough, we don't always help to make it a better place. And yet in spite of the rigor and the weariness of the daily chores and the unexpected problems that often arise, very often when love and kindness are shown in the family and we share in the excitement of learning and experiencing life as God intended it, “how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity.”

Home should be a place of refuge where all are accepted and loved because each has his or her own place to be and a responsibility to contribute and a share in all the goodness that the family has together. And this goes beyond the confines of the place that houses the individual family as the greater family shares with one another and helps bear one another's burdens. At home you can “wonder aloud” about things and have help clarifying your thinking and learning things you didn't know or understand. You can have demonstrated from life-to-life “how then should we live?” You can learn and share and teach each other the great truths you are learning from the Word of God and learning how to walk in paths of righteousness for His name's sake.

At home you can walk by quiet waters and your soul can be refreshed and renewed each day. At home you find help with your problems. And you can share the excitement of the accomplishments God gives you. After all half the joy of the good things of life is sharing them with those you love.

I said that I was thinking about “the home Minnie made for us while the children were growing up.” Actually we all made it together not any one person (and surely the husband and father has a major role to play, too), but a mother so often is able to set the tone for the home, the attitude that is picked up by the rest of the family. I think of Minnie's attitude of love and acceptance and hard work and cheerfulness and doing things with such a “willing heart.” Those are the qualities that all of us remember so well and wanted to emulate. So I pray for the attitude of all the mothers I know that they live up to what they know should be a good mother as described in Proverbs 31, for example. And I pray that the children will love their mother and father and honor them by obedience and a willing heart to do what is right. And may the children be kind one to another! I remember many times when the children were growing up and one of them said something too sharply to another, I would hear Minnie telling them from the other room in a kind, gentle voice herself, “And be ye kind one to another!” And the children responded and immediately softened their voices. I always loved to see that response.

But think now how God is the “ultimate Home builder,” the One who invented home in the first place! How wonderful for a man and a woman deeply in love to get married and set up their own home and then through the glories of sexual relations (another creation of God's; He thought up and created the whole idea!) then a family is started. And what a good effect the children have on their parents! How can you continue to be self-centered when little children need your attention so much and so often? Having children is a major help in breaking our “natural” self-centeredness.

So God started the whole thing by creating Adam and Eve with the capacities that they both had. 'God setteth the solitary in families.” Ps.68:6 “He maketh the barren woman to keep house, and to be a joyful mother of children.” Ps. 113:9 So God's wisdom, power, and grace are all seen in this basic institution of the home that God created.

Think about the whole connotation of this well-loved word, “Home.” Consider a paragraph Jeannine wrote to me in an e-mail the other day:

“I was thinking on the bus this morning about what we were talking about last night when we had to end our conversation: God as the ultimate Home builder, resting place (He is Home), and provider of all the joy and comforts connoted by the word Home (not only the provider of it, but the creator of it, and the creator of even our capacity to long for and then enjoy Home). That is really mind boggling and I'm sure, completely unique among all of the alternative religions and philosophies. When we try to imagine what God is like, this is another way to see more of his traits and his love for us.”

We speak of God as our refuge and strength, our resting place—which is another way of saying He is our Home. In Him we live and move and have our being. In Him we dwell! And all the joy and comforts of home that I was trying to describe a few minutes ago, it is He who created them and brings them in to being.

And then, she wrote that God not only created Home but He is also “the creator of even our capacity to long for and then enjoy Home.”

And surely that is helping to prepare us for our Ultimate Home in heaven where Jesus Himself has gone “to prepare a place for us.” That's what we have at home and God Himself will dwell among us and He is our Father after which fathers on earth should pattern themselves. You have a longing for heaven because God actually created you for another world than this one. So when the Lord takes you home, you can say, “I have come home at last! This is my real country! I belong here. This is the land I have been looking for all my life, though I never knew it till now. . . .” C.S. Lewis, The Last Battle, p. 196. “But our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ.” Phil. 3:20 ESV

Let's take it one step further: very often in our travels, we might be in Hong Kong, or Taiwan or Australia, or Europe, far from home and perhaps ready to go home then, I would tell Minnie, “Honey, my home is where you are.” And she understood and I understood. She was so dear to me that my home was wherever she was. When we get to heaven, we are going to realize that heaven is what it is because Jesus is there! And we are going to find perfect satisfaction and joy in His Presence. “. . . In thy presence is fulness of joy; at thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore.” Ps. 16.11

--Pastor Burnside

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