Dwell

Dwell

I love your sanctuary, LORD, the place where your glorious presence dwells.

MY HUSBAND AND I moved to our current home a decade ago, on our oldest daughter’s first birthday. Though we loved our original home, its location an hour from my husband’s work made the commute long in the summer and intolerable in the winter and spurred our decision to move to a smaller town that cut his driving distance in half.

Our first home was located on a corner lot across from a pond, which we loved. But it had too many bedrooms for couples looking to downsize, and the lack of a backyard made it a tough sell for young families. As a result, it sat on the market for a couple of years.

One day, we decided to check on the house, which was still for sale. As we pulled into the driveway, I spotted our former neighbors outside and walked across the lawn to chat with them. Returning to the car, I was astonished to hear our now-two-year-old daughter cry out, “My home! My home!”

We’d moved to our current house when she was just twelve months old, young enough that we had assumed she wouldn’t know or care about our previous house. No one had told her we were heading there; my husband and I hadn’t discussed our visit in her presence. Yet she remembered—without being told—that we had lived there. She knew it had been her home.

On the surface, the word dwell references a living space. But it’s also often a mark of something that holds a place in our minds and thoughts—we dwell on a situation or problem, thinking it through, lingering on its repercussions. Whether we mentally dwell on circumstances or physically dwell in a house, we live within them. Perhaps, when Ecclesiastes 3:11 says that God “has planted eternity in the human heart,” that is what is meant. That, like my two-year-old daughter, there is an essential part of us that recognizes and longs to dwell in heaven, our eternal home. We see the work of our Father God in each sunrise, on every mountaintop, and in the praises of his people, but when we have a relationship with Jesus, his presence dwells within us, a steady hope of home.

Lord, thank you for your presence in our lives. Amen.

-Kristin

One Good Step: Reflect on what it means to dwell with God.