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| Plenty Good Room… In my Father's house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also. (Joh 14:2-3) Have you ever gone through a time when you felt like there was not enough room for you, that you were not wanted? For me, it was when I was almost six and school would start soon. My Aunt Esther (mother’s sister) was taking me from Medlock Hollow to visit with her and Uncle Ed in Nashville, TN for two weeks. It was a plush trip in her black, smooth, quiet, six cylinder ‘36 Dodge. I was accustomed to nothing more elaborate than Grandpa’s ’29 Model A Ford that was built to get you from Point A to Point B on four cylinders… decent but not so smooth. Dad liked better cars than this but had lost his nice V/8 Ford coupe in a bank swoop during the Great Depression that relieved us of our sawmill, steam boiler, lumber truck, and Dad’s prize Ford V/8. We had plenty to eat but Medlock had none of the niceties of electric lights, refrigerator, or turn a knob stove in the kitchen. I was going to Nashville where there was…everything! They could pick up the phone receiver and order me a popsicle that would be delivered by a Harley tricycle equipped with a dry-ice compartment for ice cream. Movies? They even had movies in the park after dark. Swimming pool? They had the big Cascade Plunge where you could wet your toes or dive from ten feet high at the deep end. At not quite six, I was still “a toe man” at the water’s edge. But, on our way to “glory land,” I was in the back seat and the conversation in the front seat between Aunt Esther and my cousin, Anna Price was waay over my head. My futile efforts to break into the conversation got nowhere and suddenly I realized with great force: “they don’t really care anything about me; they don’t even know I’m with them, and I’ve got two weeks of being ignored like this. I am in sad shape. I should have stayed in Medlock Hollow where I belong and let them go on home to Nashville where they belong in that strange place. They don’t have a horse or a dog. I was…. home sick! And it wasn’t even dark yet. It doesn’t take a six-year-old long to lose it all. Since that day, feeling lonely dredges up the afternoon in the back seat of that ’36 Dodge. So much of life is based on how you were shaped in your first six years. I later read about it in the psychology books that made it official. Feeling left out is a real thing with a lot of people. The good side of the “Dodge incident” was the lesson that sometimes the answer is to: “get outta Dodge.” I got tonsillitis and asked Aunt Esther how much longer before I could go home. Another week. “If I could find my way out of here I would just walk home.” (125 miles) Aunt Esther was amused. I wasn’t amused. I decided that in this life I would not hang around where I’m not wanted. It’s their bad luck if they don’t know how wonderful I am. (Later, I learned that I was petted to death and got an undue amount of attention in Medlock. There were other people in the world besides me, but that was a later lesson.) God knows about our longing for home and writes about it in His book. In our verses for today, Jesus says He’s going to fix the problem. “Home” is a wonderful word that goes deep. Even dogs, cats and birds know about home. At night, the chickens that have roamed loose all day, come home to roost. Jesus said: …The foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests; but the Son of man hath not where to lay his head. (Mat 8:20) We need breath and we need home. The homeless people in our streets usually don’t move around from day to day. They stake out a place and go there at night. If it’s under a bridge, they will make a nest of sort and claim it, defend it against intrusion. The few belongings they have will be stashed there. If they are sick, they will die there. It’s “the place” that’s so important. Jesus said He would prepare a place for us. We will not be roaming all over Heaven when we get there. We will have our place in Heaven. Jesus has been working on our place in Heaven for two thousand years. It must be a good place and prepared just right. We won’t be disappointed. We will have a place and we will have a person, His Person. He will receive us there unto Himself. Jehovah God said: Precious in the sight of the LORD is the death of his Saints. (Psa 116:15). He sees every sparrow that falls and are we not worth as much to Him as a sparrow? God’s invitation is to all. Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. (Mat 11:28) And he said unto them, Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature. (Mar 16:15) When we have been aggravated or rejected by someone we’ve invited to be saved, we must say to ourselves: “Be patient with this man. He’s one of the creatures we’re supposed to preach the gospel to.” An inner voice says: “Be patient. I died for this person. This one is precious to me.” There’s plenty good room in our Father’s House. Ω READ THROUGH THE BIBLE IN A YEAR JANUARY 9, 2017 – MONDAY A.M. Genesis 23-24 https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis+23-24&version=KJV P.M. Matthew 8 https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew+8&version=KJV (Bible Gateway will read this to you if you like. Look for the speaker icon.) MEMORY VERSE THIS MONTH: And these words, which I command thee this day, shall be in thine heart: And thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up. (Deu 6:6-7 VERSES OF THE WEEK: Only take heed to thyself, and keep thy soul diligently, lest thou forget the things which thine eyes have seen, and lest they depart from thy heart all the days of thy life: but teach them thy sons, and thy sons' sons; (Deu 4:9) Acapella Mixed Quartet: Plenty Good Room (Breath of Life Quartet 1975) (This is extra good quality, close harmony. Internationally known black singing group.) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F2op1n9Mr6A (Wait several seconds. You may have to delete an ad.) (I learned this song from the Eureka Jubilee Singers at Highland Park Baptist Church about 1955) Dan Carr |
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