Dwelling Places

You know how little things sometimes pile up to the point that they get overwhelming, making you completely lose your focus? Well, that happened last weekend. Interestingly enough, most of it had to do with home life of some sort.

Home Décor
We are very grateful for the house and furniture provided for us by the mission, and for the most part really like where we live. However, our living/dining room has a black-and-white checkered floor, combo of white and wicker furniture, barren windows, and wildly upholstered furniture. (There are matching curtains, but we just couldn’t bring ourselves to put them up.) We plan to re-upholster and buy new curtains, but just aren’t sure what will cost-effectively pull together this motley mess?

TV
Recently the TV made a loud popping noise and smoke started wafting out the top. Needless to say, it is no longer useable. That means no more gaming on the Playstation 2, and DVDs must now be watched on computer. Maybe we’ll buy a new TV soon, except there are more pressing issues, such as …

Food
Bird flu has now officially been found in Abidjan, so the chicken and eggs we currently have in stock are all we’ve got, possibly for quite some time. Beef and fish prices will probably skyrocket as a result of the chicken shortage. That means we need to buy meat now and freeze it. We also recently learned that we can freeze eggs in ice cube trays (crazy, huh?) There’s just one problem: our freezer is tiny. That means we have to find and purchase a deep freezer.

All this just got us a little stressed out and cranky this weekend. Not by coincidence, I’m sure, in my Bible reading on Monday morning I “stumbled across” Psalm 84:

“How lovely is Your dwelling place, O Lord Almighty. My soul yearns, even faints, for the courts of the LORD; my heart and my flesh cry out for the living God … Blessed are those who dwell in Your house; they are ever praising You … Better is one day in Your courts than a thousand elsewhere.”

What a reminder that this world is not our home! Present circumstances are only temporary –- our real home is in the courts of the Lord. In the grand scheme of things, who cares if our furniture is ugly or we have to work a little harder to get meals on the table. Our assignment is that of helping usher West Africans into the courts of the Almighty, and that’s where our focus should be.

“So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.” 2 Corinthians 4:18