A House Is Not A Home

A house is not a home. A house is not a home. A house is a house, and it may be lovely to look at and fine to visit, but a house, by itself, is not a home. What is the difference?

Let me tell you a tale of two houses. These are the best of houses, these are the worst of houses. See if you can tell me which is a home.

One of those houses is straight off the cover of Architectural Digest. Its floors gleam with fresh wax; its walls are bright with unspotted hues; its drapes, its paint, its furnishings are all color-coordinated, with not one clashing item. Tasteful accents are here and there, pretending to be random but actually carefully placed, not one centimeter to the left or the right. In this house, the climate-control system balances temperature, humidity, particle count, and the ozone level. The windows are specially treated with an electron layer that repels dust and haze both inside and out. The lighting is on sensors, so that as the day darkens, selected lights come up, slowly and gradually, keeping a soft glow in the room no matter what is happening outside. In fact, it little matters what happens outside, for the room is controlled, sealed off.

Across a carpet, on which, mysteriously, no footprints appear, stands a group of people. Their clothing coordinates with the decor of the room. They are elegantly accessorized, their teeth line up in perfect smiles, and their hair is styled and shaped. They are speaking with one another, but very carefully. Very cautiously. Cool; calm; and collected. They remind you of the answer to the old question, “How do porcupines hug each other?” “Very carefully.” That’s one house.

The other house is straight off the cover of Antiques Road Show. Its floors, so far as we can see them, could use attention, particularly where the dog’s toenails have scratched. Its walls have on them some small grimy hand-prints, about so high, and its furnishings are a mixed bag of early orange crate and later K-Mart. Its drapes sag a little, its paint is cracked here and there, and where the magazines have been piling up, there is a coffee cup, half empty, and a pizza box, half full. It’s a little dark, as one of the light bulbs is burned out, and the other is hidden by someone’s sweater, pitched over the lamp in a hurry to go answer the phone.

On the other side of this room I see some people talking. It seems very animated. It’s loud; in fact, it’s an argument. They are raising their voices and waving their hands. One of them has her hands on her hips and is giving it the old foot-stomping effect. And another is shaking his head as vigorously as his old neck will allow. Sort of tense over there. Heated. Stressful!

Which of these houses is a home? Truly a home? I will not ask you which yours is like. I know which one mine is like; even though my wife was born with a paintbrush in her hand and remodeling dreams in her head, I know which one my house is like. For I know where home is. Home is where the stresses are brought and are dealt with. Home is not a museum-like perfection; home is where the issues of life get fought out, but they can be resolved, because home is where somebody loves you. Home is where somebody puts up with you. A house is just a shell, a showplace, a facade; a home, as the poet Robert Frost said, is where, when you go there, they have to take you in. A house is not a home. Hear the Hoosier poet James Whitcomb Riley, “It takes a heap o’ livin’ to make a house a home.”

God wants to give us a home. God wants to give us what we need to make our houses homes. That’s what God did when He chose to come in Jesus Christ and make His home among us. A house is not a home; God wants more for us than a house. God wants to give us a home.

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A great many of us get busy building our reputations. We are very careful about our images. We want other people to think well of us. We want to be esteemed in the community, respected in the family, regarded by our neighbors. We want to build a reputation. The trouble with that is that it is a lot like building the house from Architectural Digest: a nice place to visit, but nobody can really live there, because real life is full of stresses and contradictions. Real homes have smudges on the wall.

David, king of Israel, decided one day that it was time to build his reputation. David got it in his mind that he would create a monument by which others would recognize him. Oh, he didn’t put it that way, but that’s what it was. David decided that it was time to build a temple, a house for God to live in. And he even got the OK at first from God’s preacher, proving that not even ordained heads get everything right, just in case you didn’t already know that! But God overruled, for God saw what was really going on.