March 16

“I will heal their land”

            If my people who are called by my name humble themselves, pray, seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land.  Now my eyes will be open and my ears attentive to the prayer that is made in this place.

2 Chronicles 7:14-15

          At the dedication of the temple, God spoke with Solomon and made a significant promise.  He promised that He would always be listening, waiting for His children to come home.  If they had wandered away, if their lives had fallen apart, if they had given their love and attention to others…they could always return.  They could choose humility.  They could choose to turn back to Him.  They could come home and be restored.  The restoration would encompass not only a single person, or their family, or the entire nation.  The restoration would heal their land.  The very ground that they lived on would be redeemed and transformed through their repentance and obedience.  A visitor would be able to see the effects of their faithfulness by looking at the abundance, or the scarcity, of their surroundings.  Their land…their homes would be a reflection of their hearts.  God promised that His eyes and ears would be attentive, eager to respond to His children.

          My house is not the tidiest place in this world.  Housekeeping has taken a back seat to other, more important pursuits.  It became apparent early on that we could focus on keeping our family happy or we could focus on keeping our stuff in pristine condition.  My son’s pinball-like energy combined with his keen intellect and curiosity combined with our lack of sleep led to not bringing anything into our house that could not someday become an art project or science experiment.  We made the house kid-proof with workbenches instead of cabinets and rolls of flooring instead of carpets.  The floors and walls are covered in layers of murals and there is always some art project in process somewhere in the house.  That approach has kept our family happy and engaged and kept our home fairly messy.

          It is a great way to live, but when we go places where there are nice things…breakable things…my eyes go wide and my heart is filled with terror.  There was a time where we had to get some significant home repairs and so our family moved into the basement of my parents’ house.  My folks are great…and they never complained once…but we set up an oops shelf where we would put all the things that “we” broke.  We added at least one item to the oops shelf every day.  Often two or three.  Our family was just not at the stage where we should be around things that could be broken.  After we moved back into our house, my folks rethought their home décor and set up their house to be more appropriate for our next visit.  Fragile things move to higher shelves or locked cabinets.  Gates were put up and toy boxes were created. 

          Our homes reflect what our priorities are.  Do we invest money into therapies or nice things or pets or fine dining or clothes?  Our homes will tell those stories pretty clearly.  Do we have outlet covers?  Do we have special spaces for books or toys or tools or collectibles?  Do our kids’ rooms have tools and strategies for them to utilize when they are overstimulated or could the room belong to anyone, showing that we believe they should be just like their typical peers?  My son’s room has had slides and swings and bean bag chairs and workbenches and legos…so many thousands of legos over the years. 

          Our homes testify to what we value and invest resources into.  Our homes reflect our hearts.

A moment to reflect:

What do our homes testify about our priorities?  Is that what we want our priorities to be?