Entering the sixth year of living away from my mother's home - I am completing a fourth of my life as a nomad, living away from my mother's home. I have in two years lived in three cities under about 6 different addresses. I have lived in houses with 13 different people. Unsurprisingly, I feel a bit worn out.
I carry around things to try to make anywhere feel like home - candles, posters, pictures, letters, books, quotes. But at the moment I look at the year ahead of me - not knowing what lies beyond that - and my heart just yearns for somewhere to be "home". Somewhere to rest the head and the heart. Somewhere of peace, and of love. And rather than a housing issue - of a building with a ceiling and four walls - I believe my current issue is one of 'homing'.
For many years, I thought that desiring the stability of a family to come home to was something inherently wrong. I thought I had to get my act together on my own, be independent and responsible for myself, stable emotionally and not depend on anyone or anything to determine my identity. Seeking such things in a house, in a family, were, to me, signs of some form of weakness.
I also thought that as a Christian this was wrong. I had seen so many people around me making a family into an idol in itself - something worshiped and pursued far more than the one who created the family in the first place - that I constantly feared this. Often, I would avoid discussions about marriage or children not due to lack of interest, but out of fear of succumbing to this idol I had seen ruin so many lives. God must be enough on His own.
I still approach such ideas with caution and rebuke myself when I sway too much in that direction; howbeit, I have come to understand that the feeling of yearning a home, emotional stability and love are not inherently bad in themselves. Like most things, what matters is not the feeling, but what we do with it. What may ultimately destroy us is what we direct these desires to.
For instance, God established marriage himself before the fall (Gn. 2). Therefore, it is his creation and was within everything he saw was "Good". He said it was not good for man to be alone. However - unlike popular belief, especially in Christian circles in which there is always a high expectation for wedding bells - he never encouraged this to be anyone's ultimate goal. In fact, he has some quite hard things to say about family in Luke 9.
When one man looks out Jesus and says "I will follow you wherever you go", Jesus doesn't use euphemisms. He doesn't act like a life of service is a walk in the park, all love and butterflies. "Foxes have dens and birds have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head." And so those who serve him may come to this too. Following this, when two people want to respectively bury a parent and another to say goodbye to their family, Jesus gives two very blunt answers: “Let the dead bury their own dead, but you go and proclaim the kingdom of God.” and “No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for service in the kingdom of God.” I do not believe in any way that Jesus is saying family is a bad thing, but these verses establish very clearly that God is to be above it in one's list of priorities.
But then what is to be done with this need humans have for a home and a family? The desire for marriage, so haunting to many people? Is it to be left and ignored? Personally, I do not think this feeling exists by chance or coincidence.
"If I find in myself desires which nothing in this world can satisfy, the only logical explanation is that I was made for another world."
- C.S.Lewis
As Easter approaches, sermons and studies surrounding, analysing and picking apart details of the last supper and crucifixion increase in Christian circles. But this week I learnt one thing about the last supper that surprisingly helped me to understand a great deal about human nature.
In the passover meal, there was always a cup of wine set aside and close to the door, the Cup of salvation which was set aside as a sign that the Messiah was coming. In the last supper, this was the cup that Jesus took and offered as a covenant to his disciples. Thing is, offering this was not unusual in Jewish tradition - we only call this 'covenant' a particular name: Marriage.
When a man asked a woman to marry him, the families would be gathered for a meal, the man would pour out the wine and offer it as his covenant with her. The woman could, in theory, accept the proposal by drinking from the cup, or reject by not drinking. They would then go back to their hometowns, and the woman would now be called by the man's name - because she had been promised to him. The couple would not see each other for several months as the groom-to-be built a house - or in the translation we use in the Bible, 'mansion' - behind his parents' house. Communication would be made by the best man between the bride-to-be and groom-to-be, until the groom's father approved of the house and said the bride was to be brought, and thus they would be married.
What this means is that 2,000 years ago - when Jesus offered the cup to his followers, he was proposing to them, and after raising in the third day went to 'prepare a place' for us (John 14.3). In fact, that whole passage is remarkably consistent with the Jewish traditions!
"Do not let your hearts be troubled. You believe in God; believe also in me. My Father’s house has many rooms; if that were not so, would I have told you that I am going there to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am."This is consistent with multiple other passages in the Bible in which God refers to his people as his bride, such as Hosea, Ezekiel, Revelation.
You might ask - what does this have to do with the whole rest of the text? Well, what this means is that if we have this desire and longing for family, for togetherness and, ultimately, for a home it makes sense that we would and that it would be so strong such that it would overrule many other important things. The sad part, however, is that we seek to satisfy it only in the short term aspect of marriage on earth and through building a home with material possessions. These become our securities, and we at some point may believe it is the sole purpose this feeling was there in the first place.
In one thing the little old ladies in church asking you if you have a boyfriend or a girlfriend, or someone saying you have to get married - in a strange and unexpected way, they are right that we were all made for the stability of marriage and of a home, and if you are a Christian and have accepted Christ's covenant you are technically engaged (This definition definitely has potential to make Sunday dinner with the family interesting).
But this is what threw me off from all my concepts of such things. My idea, as I mentioned, was that I had to be 'self sufficient, responsible for myself, independent emotionally, etc etc". But, with Christ, this makes absolutely no sense. Often the metaphor used in the Bible to describe his Bride and Beloved is that of an adulteress, a prostitute, unfaithful. She is far from perfect, has a past of lies, deceit and unfaithfulness. She most definitely does not have it all together. And yet, he is proposing this covenant. A very costly covenant, in fact - that would cost him his life. But this is the measure of his love. "Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one's life for one's friends." (John 15.13)
This is not a conditional offer - that Christ will only love you if you become emotionally independent, self sufficient, etc etc. In fact, we are encouraged to bring everything - even, and especially, our brokeness to him, and he mends us, heals us, and by wearing his name, and his purity we are able to be dressed in white. Not by our achievements or hard work - but by his grace.
God sees us as we are, loves us as we are, and accepts us as we are. But by his grace, he does not leave us as we are.
-Timothy Keller
This made me think of so many brides-to-be that I know, friends and relatives, spending hours of effort, money and decision making preparing for their weddings. And I stopped to think of this covenant with Christ, and I wondered - what if we spent this much time and effort, and had preparation as high on our list of priorities to meet Christ on that day? How would our lives be different?
In light of this extraordinary love, and this covenant, I realised that ultimately, I may or may not have a place to rest my head in the next few years. Perhaps I might have it easy for now and have a vague illusion of security and stability by having a home - or I will continue to be challenged in this sense, and God may continue to push me to realise that my home is not, in fact, on earth. But one thing I do know that keeps me going is that, weather my heart is full or empty, torn or whole, ashamed or proud, there will always be somewhere to rest it: the certainty of an unconditional and irrevocable love. Regardless of houses, families, careers, this will still stand. And, well, that's a pretty darn good thought to carry into the quarter-centuries to come.
