My Home


I spend a lot of my time maintaining our home. I weed; I paint; I clean. I often think about the family that will live in my home after I die. They won’t know if I was a Christian, or an atheist; they won’t know that we raised two beautiful children and allowed our grandchildren free reign; they won’t know that an elderly neighbor ran a meth lab down the street; they will never know how many deer I shot with paintballs; they will never know that I nearly divorced my wife; they will never know of my spiritual awakening after a good friend/mentor died; they will never know that we loved two border collies and buried them in the vegetable garden.
My years living in this house will be forgotten.  Eventually, no one will know that I lived at 6085 Stanley, and as the song goes, “no one will know my name.”  John Piper suggests “in the minds of many modern people, my life will have been no more significant that what happens to a tree when it dies. It’s over. You go out of existence.” All of my time and affection for my home—a waste.  
My labor will have no eternal value— no matter how many times I paint the house, it will deteriorate.

My hope ought not be in this temporary home, but in the eternal home being prepared for me. “I know that if the tent that is my earthly home is destroyed, I have a building from God, a house not made with hands, but eternal in the heavens.”
Help me Lord to be mindful of this truth as I fix the sprinklers and weed the garden.  Amen.

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