Thought of the week from Paul Dowie

“Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head” Matthew 8 v 20

Where is home ? Do you feel at home ? We are trying to find a house to live in as a family. When you are without a permanent house, and know that you have to move on to a new house it reveals how much we draw on it for security and identity. It tells us how much and how little a house matters. Many never feel at home anywhere – and this may not be so bad if we are looking to our heavenly home.

In the meantime home, rather than a house, with all that comes with it – family, schools, neighbours, church – and the good and bad in all of these – is the place that we grow up in and continue to be shaped by. It is amazing and frightening as a parent to think of how much is moulded in the home. It is where we continue to discover our potential and our limitations. It is where we get a true measure of learning how to live with ourselves and others. Home and family is the workshop; I hope sometimes the artist’s studio; and too often the hospital where God has moulded us and is making us.

We continue to search for a house, a place to provide a roof over our home. As we do this  we seek to listen to what Jesus said so that “…everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock.” Matthew 7 v 24

Paul Dowie