A Place to Live

For some months now I've been house hunting. It's been a frustrating process. Rents on nice apartments are way out of my budget range and places that I can afford are small and not too nice. A friend in the real esate business has been showing me small homes to buy in South Philadelphia. I've seen two that I particularly liked but by the time we tried to make an offer, both were already under contract to someone else. I keep looking both at rental units and homes to purchase.but the frustration continues. I know that the Lord has a place for me. Finding it is just more work than I had bargained for. When I find it it will be in the right location at the right price with all the necessary amenities--or lack of them. Most certainly it will not be what I expect, but it will be the place of God's own choosing. God has, after all, promised to provide for all our needs.

I've been reflecting on the Psalmist's statement, "Lord, you have been our dwelling place throughout all generations." (Ps. 90:1) I've lived in various places in the world, and no matter where I've gone, I've been at home in God, no mater how great the adjustment of moving or the culture shock of being in a totally different place. I've lived in an unheated room in Paris, which had no hot water, in a story book looking chalet in Switzerland, in a room in a grand old villa on a hillside overlooking Florence, in the basement of some friends' home, in an apartment in the center of Florence in a building that I found on a town map dating from the late 1400's. I house-sat in London, shared a friend's apartment in Queens, NY, and found shelter with various people while travelling in Asia and Africa. The Lord has always provided a place to stay.

As I look back over the list of the dwellings in which I have found abode, all I can say is that there has been incredible diversity. I'm reminded of a line from an old gospel song: "A tent or a cottage, why should I care? They're building a mansion for me over there."

I guess it boils down to that. If God is our ultimate abode here on earth, then we look forward to more of same, although in a richer, fuller sense than we have ever known, in the life to come. It's more than a spiritual hope. It's a place. Jesus said, "I go to prepare a place for you." We have reason to believe that the dwelling that He is preparing for us far outshines anything we can imagine here on earth. The architect and builder is the Creator of the universe Himself. There will be no leaky roofs, wet basements, termites, faulty wiring, sagging walls, unstable foundations, etc. It will be perfect. It's worth looking forward to.

"Here we have no lasting city, but we seek the city that is to come..the city that has foundatinons, whose designer and builder is God." (Hebrews 13:14, 11:10)