This Home
“I refuse to see this home as a burden or hindrance to the plans and purposes you have for us. It’s a catalyst.
This home is a catalyst for what you want to do in and through our lives.”
I grew up with this missionary mindset to always be ready and willing to GO and leave everything behind to follow the word of the Lord and His leadership to any nation or place on earth. While I still hold to this I now realize how many assumptions I made in the midst of growing up in the Lord with this mentality. I came to view staying as somehow less than or inferior or less holy than living a life of total abandon to anything that could hold or tie me down. My mindset and perspective has since significantly shifted and expanded to be one that sees all of life as something to be lived WITH God, rather than simple for, from, or unto.
I’m still very much in the process of growing in maturity in this but I also wonder if I’m not alone in this. If there is someone else who may read this and be able to identify with the belief that it might somehow be better if they didn’t own a house, a car, a you name it and fill in the blank — or have children, or external commitments to people and places beyond the home. It can be tempting to believe that if somehow we didn’t have all these things we’d be more free to be mobile and live the life we read about Jesus discipling his disciples in. However, Scripture makes no reference to life with God and the lifestyle of making disciples as one that is exclusive to GOing in the exact same way the 12 did. This is undoubtedly a correlation that I have made and spent years believing, but when in fact Jesus is simply teaching principles of the Kingdom over and over again. Jesus repeatedly emphasizes the importance of walking with the Father, and therefore with him, in such close proximity and relationship that we cannot help but do what we see the Father doing and speak what we hear the Father speaking. We have both the written Word of God and the living Spirit of God, to guide us in learning to walk with him. What a privilege!
There are many books that speak on these subjects but two that are on the forefront of my mind today are:
Walking with God by John Eldredge and With by Skye Jethani.
