The home within

A Christian Science perspective on daily life.

News reports of the rising number of foreclosures and the threat of families losing their homes can move people to ponder more deeply just what home really is. Most would agree that home is much more than bricks and mortar.

While we may value whatever is our personal home – an apartment or a house or condo – if you take away the material appearance, you'll find some universal spiritual qualities that help make our domicile a home. These include qualities such as security, stability, well-being, beauty, order, and peace.

These and other qualities show home to be a spiritual concept, not just four walls, important as those may be. When we begin to think of home in spiritual terms, we realize that we can never lose it. No matter what our living arrangements, we can expect to find the qualities of home that we most value. And we can trust that our home will evidence God's loving care for each of us, sustaining, protecting, and sheltering us – His sons and daughters.

Since home is an idea available to each of us, the outward form may change, but we can never actually be without it. No one can take it from us. Mary Baker Eddy, who discovered Christian Science, once said, "Home is not a place but a power" (Irving Tomlinson, "Twelve Years with Mary Baker Eddy," p. 211). The stability we gain from being clear about the spiritual nature of home really is a power. It gives us confidence and strength – a feeling of having a secure foundation.

Even though there's no record of Jesus owning a home, he was never without God's loving care; his needs were provided for. And he promised us that all our needs would be met as well when he said, "Your Father knoweth what things ye have need of, before ye ask him" (Matt. 6:8).

Home, then, is not so much a structure we own or rent but an idea we include in our true being. Since home is a spiritual idea, it isn't subject to economic upturns and downturns. Knowing this can be an anchor when events swirling around us say otherwise. Real estate statistics or chance or any other circumstances do not govern us or our home. God alone is in charge of our lives, and home is part of the care He provides.

When homeowners are faced with a mortgage crisis, they can turn to the loving arms of God, to His law of justice and goodness, and expect to find a practical solution to the difficulties they face. It is the nature of God's law of love to provide everything needed for our well-being. We can let go of preconceived plans of how things should work out, and rely completely on God's law to govern our lives. This law is good and impartial and embraces all His children in His loving care.

Even if we find ourselves in dire straits, God's love illumines the way in which we should walk, the practical steps we should take. In our prayers for our neighbors and the nation, we can affirm that God is the source of all wisdom and goodness, and that He liberally imparts wisdom to all His children, including those responsible for housing and financial legislation. We can expect the human law to pattern the divine, and see equity and resolution for those in need (see "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," p. 542).

God's idea of home is a blessing, not a hardship. God has inexhaustible resources of good that He bestows on all His children. The Bible promises: "I will restore to you the years that the locust hath eaten … And ye shall eat in plenty, and be satisfied, and praise the name of the Lord your God, that hath dealt wondrously with you" (Joel 2:25, 26). That same divine promise is active and forever present to adjust and restore all good for us as well. We are all of the household of God, secure in His tenderness.

My people shall dwell
in a peaceable habitation,
and in sure dwellings,
and in quiet resting places.
Isaiah 32:18

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