Our Dwelling Place

I wonder what comes to your mind when you think of home. Maybe rest, maybe worry about getting it clean, maybe joy, maybe memories of something not so great. At its best, home should be a place of safety, refuge, rest, provision, and peace.

It's interesting to me, then, that the people of God talk of the Lord being their dwelling place. And this has been the plan from the foundation of the world, that the Lord would open up Himself to us, that He would dwell with His people. He truly is the ultimate place of safety, peace, and provision. We're to abide in Him. In Him we live and move and have our being.

My exhortation to you, church, is: make the Lord your dwelling place. Live and move and have your being in Him. Abide with Him through this week, pray continually, remember that He is with You, working in all things. When troubles arise, run to Him for safety and shelter. When your heart is unsteady, find your peace in Him.

The Lord is not the neighbor we visit for a bit; he is our God who is with us, our refuge, our shelter, our dwelling place.

Often, though, instead of living in and through the Lord, we try to live in and through other things. We make other things our dwelling place and refuge. What do you run to for shelter when trouble comes, when the day is not what you expected? Where do you turn when you need peace?

Maybe you live in and through yourself. You run to your ability to problem solve and think of all the solutions, so you seek security in your plans. Or maybe you rest in your own ability to press through it and stay steady, so you seek to create stability with your own effort. Maybe you isolate and run to the escape that a phone or entertainment offers, and you hope that whatever you're facing will fade away.

Or maybe you try to live in and through others—their approval, acceptance, their view of your job performance, where if people are good with me, then I am good and can rest secure.

The reality is these things will not give us the shelter we really are longing for. They won't give us the peace or stability that the Lord alone brings. Make Him your dwelling place.