Can a Person Be a Home?
Many think of home as a place, an address, perhaps with a few people in it who in some way act as our carers or support system. Some of you may be all too aware that love can be conditional as can be our freedom to go home.
The best home I have ever had is one that has moved with me. Each time I grow it has allowed me to do so and each time I make mistakes I have been both corrected and encouraged to do better. My mistakes are never dragged up again and I often feel, even at my age, like a favourite indulged child.
This home that I speak of is found in God. For me a home is not so much a place as it is a supportive, accepting and advice giving situation. God’s acceptance of me as His child is based on a full understanding of who I am and what I have done. He knows what matters most to me, even if I don’t like to admit it, and He knows every shameful thing I have ever done or thought. Yet still He calls me His child and invites me to sit and reason with Him.
This is a home worth having, one to hold onto and treasure. Rare are the relationships that are based on full and frank disclosure. Rarer still are friends or loved ones that can bear it when we err. God is our home. A tangible solid base on which we can build our life. A source of both comfort and confidence, instruction and compassion.
Isn’t it time you came home?
“Lord, through all the generations you have been our home!
2 Before the mountains were born, before you gave birth to the earth and the world, from beginning to end, you are God.”
Psalm 90 :1, 8 (NLT)
1 “O Lord, you have examined my heart
and know everything about me.
2 You know when I sit down or stand up.
You know my thoughts even when I’m far away.
3 You see me when I travel
and when I rest at home.
You know everything I do.
4 You know what I am going to say
even before I say it, Lord.
5 You go before me and follow me.
You place your hand of blessing on my head.
6 Such knowledge is too wonderful for me,
too great for me to understand!
7 I can never escape from your Spirit!
I can never get away from your presence!
8 If I go up to heaven, you are there;
if I go down to the grave, you are there.
9 If I ride the wings of the morning,
if I dwell by the farthest oceans,
10 even there your hand will guide me,
and your strength will support me.
11 I could ask the darkness to hide me
and the light around me to become night—
12 but even in darkness I cannot hide from you.
To you the night shines as bright as day.
Darkness and light are the same to you.
13 You made all the delicate, inner parts of my body
and knit me together in my mother’s womb.
14 Thank you for making me so wonderfully complex!
Your workmanship is marvellous—how well I know it.
15 You watched me as I was being formed in utter seclusion,
as I was woven together in the dark of the womb.
16 You saw me before I was born.
Every day of my life was recorded in your book.
Every moment was laid out
before a single day had passed.
17 How precious are your thoughts about me, O God.
They cannot be numbered!
18 I can’t even count them;
they outnumber the grains of sand!
And when I wake up,
you are still with me!”
Psalm 139:1-18 (NLT)