Heaven… can you imagine it for just a moment. A place of perfect peace, grace, openness, acceptance and love.
I’ve heard it said before that “home” should be a place that is the closest thing to heaven on earth. Why? Because home is to be the place where hurts get healed, forgiveness is routine, love is shown, and where acceptance and grace is the norm. Home is to be our “safe place” here until we reach our eternal safe place there. In a sense, God’s design for the home is that it be a little piece of Heaven right here on earth.
But as we honestly think of our home, could we honestly consider Heaven as one of the words to describe it? For some of us, that might seem like quite a stretch. But should it?
For many, when they think of home, they may think of hurts that go deep, wounds that won’t heal, or of bitterness and unforgiveness. They think of a place filled with stress, not peace; a place of division, not unity.
But consider this question… ‘What could you do starting today to make your home the place that God desires it to be and that your family needs it to be?’
Stop for just a moment and think about your family, your home, and your everyday life… How many of the things, events, and priorities that make up your lives as a family will actually be present in Heaven? (Seriously, stop and think about it.)
If you were to strip away all the things that you and your family currently do on a regular basis for the sake of eternity (ministries, outreach, etc.), and stop to look at all of the “other things” that fill up your schedule and lives, how many of them fall in line with what we will be doing for all of eternity?… Many? Any?
- On this earth, we often run ourselves ragged, but not so in Heaven.
- On this earth, we easily idolize things, people and entertainment, but not in Heaven.
- On this earth, we primarily focus on what pleases our flesh in the moment, but not in Heaven.
I have a feeling that if we were to honestly evaluate our life’s activities in comparison to what we will be doing for all of eternity, there might be a pretty big gap. Yes, Heaven is meant to be our place of eternal rest, which means that we have a lot of things that we can only do here and now, but how is our family or our home ever going to experience a taste of Heaven here on earth if few of our priorities here match up with what will be our priorities there?
- If we never have time to just spend with one another and love on each other.
- If we seldom are able to squeeze in time to pray together, read God’s Word, or to praise God for who He is and the great things He’s done.
- If our time, our finances, and our decisions reveal more selfishness rather than selflessness.
- If we separate our weekly lives from our “spiritual weekend lives”.
It’s important that our lives are a reflection to our children of our priorities. This means that our home should be a place that feels like the closest thing to Heaven on earth – a place where our children feel secure, loved, and able to experience God’s grace. And a place where they see the priorities of Heaven reaching down and touching earth.
Our home should be a place where Heaven is mentioned, Jesus is praised, and God and His Word are daily followed. Our home should be an earthly place that reflects an eternal one. The big question is simply this… Does it?
What could you start doing differently today to make your home a place that is a little bit more like heaven here on earth?
