It might be time to rewrite my bio and turn in my introvert card. After two weeks of quarantine, I’m not the happy homebody I thought I was. This season is making me miss people like crazy. Part of what makes home so sweet is being away from it. Part of what makes being alone so great is NOT being alone. Being locked inside night and day trying to keep everyone entertained and learning and fed and changed — the appeal is unraveling faster than our last ten TP rolls.
How quickly a refuge becomes a prison.
Then I think about my brave medical friends who would long to be home night and day instead of on the frontline fighting.
Quarantine is redefining my entire concept of what it means to have a dwelling place. We are such creatures of place. To know someone well is to understand where she comes from. In many ways, we are products of our place.
In Deuteronomy, all Israel’s eyes are literally looking across the Jordan River to their future place: The Promised Land. A placeless, nameless group of former slaves is about to cross over into a very real physical place— a land flowing with milk and honey.
I find it poignant that at this very moment the Holy Spirit led Moses to record these words to his people:
“The eternal God is your dwelling place, and underneath are the everlasting arms.” Deut. 33:27a
You’re about to enter the land of promise, but remember God alone is your dwelling place.
What is your Place right now? Maybe you’re quarantined in a very difficult situation and your normal support system can’t help. Maybe you’re single and the social distancing is almost too much to bear. Maybe you don’t know how you will make it one more full day trying to oversee every child’s online school work. Maybe your place is the frontline of this awful battle with the same mask you wore the last 7 days.
The word of God goes out to all who have ears to hear: “The eternal God is your dwelling place.”
No matter where we physically spend these days, Our Dwelling Place is none other than the Almighty God himself.
How can these words bring comfort? What does it mean that God is your dwelling place?
It’s so precious and simple. God as our dwelling place means:
- We don’t have to be troubled. John 14:1 says, “Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me.” Our peace is not some wispy, fuzzy pipe dream. It was secured by the blood of Jesus (Col 1:19). We have a costly and precious peace found in our Most High dwelling place. We find calm at the place of calvary.
- He prepares an actual physical place for us. In John 14:2 Jesus says, “In my Father’s house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you?” A real place awaits us as follows of Christ, a place prepared by the very nail-scared hands of Jesus. Truer than any earthly promised land. More beautiful than any bucket-list destination. When the Most High is your dwelling place, you have an intimate awareness that this world is not your home.
- Our Place is near him. God no longer dwells in a temple. He doesn’t live in an ark or a tabernacle. God the Holy Spirit, who raised Christ from the dead, dwells in you and in me. This is nearness. It’s what Paul calls “a guarantee of our inheritance.” (Eph 1:14). A guarantee for what? In John 14:6 Jesus continues, “And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also.” We were saved to be brought near to our shepherd forever.
- Christ will deliver us. Jesus is the way to dwell with God. He doesn’t just point the way, lead the way, teach the way, show the way: he IS the way. In case there is any confusion he tells Thomas, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” Do you want to make the Most High Your dwelling place? You will have to go through Jesus. There is no other way. But through him, you have full and unhindered access to the throne. The way is in him, through him, and to him.
Do you need a change of scenery? Do you long to escape your walls? You’re not alone. Run to Jesus. Dwell in the shadow of the Almighty (Ps.91:1). Yes, He is with you in your place: in your apartment, at the hospital, prepping lessons, at the grocery store, but even deeper than that — he IS your place. Your very real refuge. He loved you so much, he bought you to draw you to himself. He is a place like no other. Dwell in him.
“And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God.” Rev. 21:3