The Chair by the Fireplace

"They said, "Rabbi" (which means Teacher), "where are you staying?"
"Come", he replied, "and you will see."
So they went and saw where he was staying, and spent that day with him."

Where do we live? It isn't a geographical question, I don't know if a point on the map begins to answer it.

What I really wonder is - where our hearts live. Where the real person inside of us lives. After all, we aren't just physical bodies are we? Our physical bodies don't even begin to capture what we're really like most of the time.......

Every heart lives somewhere. Maybe by the side of a gravestone of someone who left us when we weren't ready. Or next to someone who cares little whether we live or not. Inside a cool bank vault. Maybe always on the run - fleeing in the night from our fears. Perhaps some of us don't care. We don't know, so why care.

I've always been impressed by the care we take to house our bodies. There must be a little garden by the house, or at least in the backyard. There must be natural light, and fresh air wherever possible. The house must look just so, and feel just like so. What about turning down for the night? "I long for my own bed". The bed has to be just right, the lights have to be turned down just that much, I need my favourite night-clothes. For most of us, even for those who live from hotel room to hotel room, we do remember what OUR BED felt like; and we long for it.

Physical houses - to house physical bodies. And the care......is planned down to the last detail.

Our hearts....well they are a different story. We don't mind leaving them out there in the rain - in the middle of a snowstorm. Some of us don't mind at all, if we spent our lives seething inside, sickle in hand, waiting to hurt someone else. Some of us seek happiness in the shadows, and we seemingly find it, and hold on to it with a stranglehold on life. I'm nothing short of AMAZED, at the fact that though we instinctively know our hearts, we don't take care to house our hearts.

The more I think about it......the more I am convinced that my heart needs that place - where I (the person inside) can kick off my shoes by the fireplace, sit down and let the cares of life drain away. A place of absolute security where no one can reach, leave alone harm. An impregnable, ancient fortress on a high mountain.

The moment I've thought of that chair by the fireplace, many images fill my mind. Maybe there's a rug there - a hearth. There are soft, easy lights, lovingly etched on ancient, venerable wood. The warmth in there is not merely in just the place itself - it reaches inside of my heart. There's a steaming pot of coffee there, to blow out the chill from inside me. Maybe my eyes fall upon life-giving text on yellowed paper, in an old leather-bound tome. I can hear the strains, somewhere within me:

"Great is Thy Faithfulness, O God, My Father!!
There is no shadow of turning with Thee,
Thou changest not, Thy compassions, they fail not,
As Thou hast been, Thou forever wilt be!"

I feel a loving hand rest on my shoulder and look up into the loving eyes of God.

It's unchangeable! That chair by the fireplace, will be mine for eternity. No one else can really sit there and feel at home like I do. Let the ages roll on, but God still keeps that chair by the fireplace for me.

Very possibly...your mind fills with different images. Each heart.....has its own home. God has a different "chair by the fireplace" for each of us.

Let's think of a place where our hearts are at home. And dwell there........

Where does your heart live? While you're finding out, come see where mine lives.