A Godly abode

From the time I graduated High School in 2012 until my spouse and I bought our house in 2021 I never lived in one spot longer than a year. It involved a lot of moving and many different roommates. During that time, I lived with men and women, as few as one and as many as four, some my same age and others many years my senior, in both small apartments and old houses. I livid in Duluth, Minneapolis, Chicago, Falls Church and Baltimore. I really enjoyed some of the places I lived and others not so much. In this week’s Gospel Jesus is asked how he will reveal himself to his followers but not the world, and in parts of his response he says that he and the father will “make our home” or “abide” with them. He doesn’t say they’ll live with them, generically be with them, or look out them instead he uses the word abide. To me at least that signifies something deeper. Looking back on all the places I lived in during that decade I’m mostly certain I would never say I abode in them or made my home in them. Sure, they had my stuff, I slept and ate there but it was always apparent that they were just stops along the way. Not places I would ever fully settle in to. I would say I’ve “made home” where I live not though. I’ve arranged (and rearranged furniture), I’ve painted walls, broken and fixed things, put new nail holes in the wall and learned the tune of the creaking stairs as people and pets go up and down them. I wonder if that’s what it is like for God and Jesus when they “abide” in us. Do they learn the sounds of the aches of our bones, see what was once broken get mended, participate in the myriads of colors of our lives? What do you think? What does it mean to you to know that a loving God has made a home in you? And how does it feel to know they have made a home in your neighbors and people across the world as well?

Peace,

Corey