How does Jesus influence what happens in your home—the kind of person that you are, the things that you and your family do, and how you interact with others who may also be living there?
I’m aware that some people do not regard the place where they’re physically living right now as their home. If that’s true for you, I’d invite you, for the purposes of these devotions this week, to start thinking of the house, or townhouse, or flat, or room where you’re living as your home, however strange that may feel. Because the good news of the gospel is that our faith, if it’s a living faith, really can make a life-giving difference to where we live here and now.
(There will be some reading these words who live in grossly impoverished housing—mere shacks, without even the most basic services like electricity and running water. There are others reading these words who are homeless, who literally live on the streets of our city. I have to acknowledge that your daily reality is so vastly different from mine. I hope that what is written here is not a cause of further alienation for you. Certainly, the awareness of your situation helps me to see my home and my privilege in a whole new light.)
I’d like to begin by saying that your home can become a sanctuary! I don’t say that lightly because I’m aware that home can be a chaotic, demanding and draining place at times:
- Cooking and cleaning and basic home maintenance can take a great deal of energy, particularly when there are young children in the home. And when these responsibilities fall unfairly on the shoulders of some, it can become a source of great resentment.
- Then, of course, there are the complex dynamics of family relationships, which have a massive influence on the whole atmosphere at home. When there’s underlying or unresolved conflict with family members, home can be an emotionally exhausting place.
- And then, a home can also be a source of tremendous financial stress—due to the significant costs of servicing a bond, or paying the rent, or maintaining a property.
It begins by recognizing what a sanctuary is.
In secular understanding, a sanctuary is quite simply a safe place providing nurture and care. In religious understanding, a sanctuary usually refers to a church building where the worship of God takes place. Blending these two ideas together, how would you like your home to become a safe place of nurture and care, in which the worship of God happens through the day-to-day activities that are part of running a home?
Sound unrealistic? Impossibly optimistic? Well, Jesus would be hoping for nothing less. And if you place your faith in him, your home is one of the areas of your life that can be radically transformed by that living faith being put into action.
Over the rest of this week we’ll be exploring different dimensions of ‘home life’ from the perspective of faith, as we look for the transformation of our homes into sanctuaries.
QUESTIONS FOR REFLECTION:
- What difference would it make to you and your family if you lived, not just in a building, but in a sanctuary?
- What could you make with your own hands for your home that would be a source of great satisfaction and joy for you? It could be something decorative or something functional. Why not set yourself the goal of having it finished by no later than Easter Sunday, so that this Easter there would be something tangible in your home that would bear witness to your faith coming alive within you in fresh ways?
Gracious God, I want so much for my home to become a place where you are known, and where the soulful things of life are experienced as a matter of course. I long for my home to become a sanctuary, but when I think of the chaos that often reigns there, I’m not so sure that this is possible. Guide me and help me I pray, especially in these devotions this week, that I might come to see the ways in which my life at home can be offered to you as a sacrifice that you would receive and bless and consecrate. Amen.
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