We belong to God

Margaret Wise Brown's The Runaway Bunny is a book for children of all ages. It is the story of a little bunny who dreams about running away from home, only to find "home" wherever he ends up. His mommy does not stop him from running away, but she does not leave him either. When he climbs a tree, the tree is in the shape of Mommy. When he travels the ocean, the wind is in the shape of Mommy. When he joins the circus, the trapeze artist is shaped like Mommy. Finally, Bunny gets the point. "Aw, shucks!" he says, "I might just as well stay home and be your little bunny." Which he does.

Whether we are bunnies or sheep or people, we cannot run away from God. God is our home, and like the Israelite’s Ark of the Covenant, God travels with us wherever we go. The Apostle Paul reminds us that "nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord…neither death nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation."

The Bible offers us several images of God as home. God is both shepherd and host, pasture and valley, mansion and fortress, still water and open gate. Whatever the circumstances of our lives, God is with us -- in peace, in war, in hope, in fear, in life, in death, in joy, in suffering. When we are at home with God, even the most difficult days are infused with abundant life.

Sometimes, when I’m sitting with a family that has just lost a loved one – as I did twice in the last couple of weeks – I think to myself, "Dear God, what can I possibly say to these hurting people?"

The words of the Lord's Prayer and the Twenty-third Psalm often well up within me. Both remind us of a loving God who has promised to never leave us or forsake us. Here’s the bottom line: In life and in death, we belong to God. In life and in death, we are at home in God. But the reverse is also true. God needs and wants to be at home in us. God needs and wants to abide in us.

Hope is the home within us, the home where God lives, the home where God abides.

Rest, restoration and security are the promises of Scripture. And they are promised even and especially in the midst of hostility and danger and death. But such blessed assurance comes with a price. We come to trust a dependable God only when we embrace a dependable discipline. In Acts we learn that the first century church grew through devotion and discipline. Day by day the new converts spent time together in the temple. Day by day they broke bread at home, and ate with glad and generous hearts. Day by day they praised God, sold their possessions and distributed the proceeds according to need. And day by day, God added to their number, and added abundantly to their already abundant life. Like any home, God needs our attention and honor. But once we have worshipped and been restored, we can then go out and give care and attention and honor to the world.