As For Me And My House

But if serving the Lord seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your ancestors served beyond the Euphrates, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you are living. But as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord.” (Joshua 24:15)

            I know this isn’t the next passage in I Timothy. We’ll come back to that tomorrow. This is an issue I’ve been thinking about over the past six weeks. I asked a friend to make a plaque with this verse on it and I plan to hang it on my wall somewhere. Yesterday was a busy day, and I feel the need for some reflection time. I sold or otherwise disposed of many boxes of things that had been in the motorhome or had been in Grace Cottage before I bought it. What that means is that there is space where there had not been space before. It’s time to figure things out, and this verse is a cornerstone of the decisions I need to make.

             One of the challenges I face is that I start, or potentially start, a new life every six months. In March and April, I have to figure out who I’m going to be and what I’m going to do up north. In September and October, I have to ask the same questions about down south. Each year I tend to find myself asking about what ministry I’m supposed to have. Notice that I said “ministry” and not “ministries.” I want to find one way that I’m supposed to do minister to others. I want to find the purpose for my life.

Grace Cottage adds a new element for me – but it doesn’t. It’s just that it’s new and my mind is asking, “What new thing are you going to add to make Grace Cottage into a place of ministry? What is Grace Cottage’s purpose? Again, note the singularity being described.

              I also need to point out that when Joshua talked about his house, he didn’t mean the place where he lived. He was talking about the members of his household. In a way, that includes the building because if those inside it are serving the Lord, one could say that the building is, too. So it’s not there, but it is.

And one of the ideas that comes to mind is to make Grace Cottage a place open to all at any time. But yesterday showed me that such really isn’t wise. I spent all morning being at the beck and call of everyone who walked up. It was exhausting and I don’t know that I ministered to most of the people who stopped by.

             One of the thoughts that seems to be forming in my mind is that the key is not the idea of a ministry. There doesn’t need to be a well-defined kind of thing that I do. The reality is that I’m called to minister, which means to serve. That means my ministry may be setting up a seating area one day, delivering papers another, or picking up trash on a third. Or writing a story, or taking someone to the hospital, or walking the dog. However you minister, you’re ministering, but some of us want to get hung up on definitions and statistics.

             Now, how do I apply this to my house, acknowledging again that Joshua’s house wasn’t a building and I’m probably stretching the idea farther than it’s supposed to. But, if a house, whether people or a building, is to minister, then it must serve. It doesn’t seem to me to be a  great step in logic to conclude that one way, perhaps a main way, that my house can serve the Lord is by being a place that enables me – and others - to better serve Him.

                I’m not going to drag this out, partly because I don’t have all the answers and probably never will. What my home needs to be will change as I change and as my circumstances change. Right now, I need it to be a place that welcomes and protects me, meaning that it can be a part-time hermitage. It doesn’t have to have people coming and going all the time. That may seem obvious to some folks, but it might be a surprise to others. If my home is to serve God, however, in part by making it possible to serve others, then it needs to protect me, to provide me with the ability and the right to restrict others when I need solitude to recharge.

           And not only does my home need to protect the well-being of an introvert, but it needs to be a place that encourages my service. It needs to be a place where well-being is encouraged in every area of the lives of any who find shelter in it, for a lifetime or a few minutes. It can’t be a spotless fashion showplace, but it can and will be a place where I can be creative and where I can share what I love with others. That may not sound like I’ve figured anything out, but I think I’m a lot more ready than I was to say, “As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.”