When Your Home Holds You Captive
We’ve all been there at some point. Sitting in a house we don’t love. Just biding our time until we can move. Things will be better when we have more space, a bigger yard, an updated kitchen or _____ (fill in the blank with your dream).
We sit. Held captive by our home. Temporarily immobilized. Not wanting to decorate, hang pictures or get cozy in the waiting period. I’ve done it. Multiple times. The problem is we never know when the next living situation will surface and who even knows if it will really be better.
Waiting…that’s exactly the worse thing we can do. We shouldn’t play this game of allowing a place to dictate our actions and ultimately steal our joy.
Did you know even the Bible teaches we are to make a home and live whole heartedly during the in-between times?
Jeremiah 29 is a beautiful letter of instruction and promise from the prophet Jeremiah to the Israelites exiled to Babylon. These folks were flat kicked out of their homes!
Jeremiah 29:5 Build houses and settle down
Did you hear that!?
God just said to hang pictures on your walls and maybe buy a new rug.
Ok – maybe he wasn’t that specific, but I think that’s what he said. God was telling these people not to just live and scrape by. He didn’t say pitch a tent and make due. He said settle in and create a home.
Next He tells them:
29:6 Increase in number, do not decrease. Also, seek the peace and prosperity of the city to which I have carried you into exile. Pray to the Lord for it, because if it prospers, you too will prosper.
So not only are the Israelites supposed to set up shop but they are to grow their families in captivity all while praying for their captive land.
That means have babies when you think you don’t have enough room. Socialize and invite friends and family over when you are in a rental. Live life without imaginary limits we let a house create.
Our physical surroundings are never meant to hold back our internal peace.
So what are we told to do?
Seek peace and pray.
Why?
Because it’s a win win. It’s good for your surroundings and ultilmately it’s good for you.
If you don’t love your current living situation (or job, or marriage, or whatever) I’d bet your praying up a storm for a new one. That’s a wonderful idea.
But are you praying for the peace of your current situation? Are you praying that you and your family would continue to grow and prosper between the walls you feel stuck in? I know that’s not been my prayer in times of housing discontent. Remember it’s hard to hate someone or something you are praying for. Prayer softens a heart.
Life can’t stop and shouldn’t become paralyzing because we don’t like where God has us camped out. It’s simply a waste of time and energy that the Bible clearly instructs against. Discontent over the home we are given blocks joy God has planned for us. So how do we settle in and seek peace?
My advice is to start treating your today home as your forever home. Go ahead and decorate, accessorize, paint and improve. Put your mark on it. Improving your home is prospering it. You could possibly even be creating the next owner’s dream! You may be saying, “But I rent” or make another excuse limiting your creative freedom, but that’s not good enough. There are a million rental ideas on Pinterest. Start with anything that’s not nailed down. It can all go with you if and when you finally head to your promised land.
Rearrange furniture, get rid of things you don’t love, add some zippy new pillows. Whatever you’ve been holding out on, just go for it! Create a physical peace around you. God told the captives to settle in because he knew making a home would lead to peace and life and joy and ultimately Him. Regardless of their physical address.
God promises to lead us all out of captivity…when we seek him with all of our heart.
Don’t let your home be a roadblock to freedom. Choose to live the life you have been given today.
All the pictures above are linked to a project you can work on to start loving where you live now.
Please share if you know someone who needs to be set free!
Wonderful, This could not have come at a better time for me.
Thank you.
God’s timing is so amazing!!! I love that He knows what we need and when we need it.
Love the reminder to PRAY about where we are…physically and mentally and spiritually. Thanks my friend. You inspired me to get going on a project!
You could not be more right! We lived in a home for 12 years and felt trapped so many times. It wasn’t until we starting working on our marriage, our relationship with God, and making it a home that God finally blessed us with a move to a new state, a new home, a new future. Those hard times made the blessings all the more joyous!
Exactly, we can’t even recognize a blessing with out the hard times. So glad to see you have come through the other side. God is so faithful.
Every word is a reminder to myself, just spoken out loud!
Wonderful life lesson!
I’m thrilled you enjoyed it!
Well my goodness….you know that scripture that says God uses all things???? The Almighty has used you in a big way today in MY life. Praise His name and thank you sweet lady. I’m off to decorate:)
Well He used you right back. Thank you for sharing and encouraging me to continue sharing!!! Decorate your heart out friend!
You always seem to say exactly what I need to hear…(Thank you, Lord!)
Not me, Him. I am grateful to be a conduit.
For nine years we have lived in this house and only recently have we began to put our mark on it! NINE years!!! Why did we “wait” so long?! It’s true – when we finally stop thinking something bigger and better is going to make things work, we make work what we have. And, I’ve found that I really like our home! Like anything else, it’s a lot of work but totally worth it!
We always think we know what will happen next, but we really have no idea! Giving in to that brings such freedom! So glad you are loving your space now!
This is perfect for me…. my 5 year home has turned into 15 years. It’s just time to stop waiting for something better and make this my dream for now home.
Absolutely!!! There is no reason to wait another second!
So true. Just today, I took down some drapes in the guest bedroom of our house. They were definitely someone else’s taste. We have lived here three years, and I have felt like I had to leave them up because someone must have spent a fortune on them. The room looks so much better and I feel so much happier.
It’s funny the weight we let certain things have on us…like someone else spending a bunch of money. I’ve done the same thing. Hope this starts a trend for you 😉
Thank you for sharing this wonderful post. We have recently started to “feather our nest” after 16 years of living with builder grade everything. It’s been a blessing to dream and finally start making our home mine!
Yay, I am glad you liked it but more glad to hear you are making your spot home!
I so needed to hear this my friend! I have felt like a prisoner in the present rental home that we are in. It has robbed me of my joy and it is my own fault for letting it. I could never understand my husband’s desire to put our stamp on it since I always thought it was only a temporary thing and thinking it will probably be bulldozed when the next owner gets their hands on it. lol Five years later and 6 moves in the 5 years before that and all I dream about is getting our first place together as a family. But of course that has to be in God’s timing and until I am thankful for this place will I be set free and He can’t lead us to the next one.
I know, we have all wasted time and missed blessings laying in front of us. I hope you set out to find a new joy in your space! You are so creative, I know you can make it awesome!!!
I am thankful beyond words that you posted this today. You pretty much summed up 80% of how I was feeling and thinking. And then all the guilt that comes for not being thankful for what God has blessed me with! A wonderful post! Have a blessed day!!!
I only share what God convicts me of :/ He is good like that!
We’re in the midst of trying to sell our home, so all of my “personal stuff” has been packed away. 🙁 Even though I believe we are acting in obedience, this is a very hard place to be….. the unknown! Ugh! Thank you for this great teaching from God’s wonderful Word about still living in the “waiting”. I’m so thankful for your ministry! Blessings!
In Him,
Lisa Aultman
That’s a hard place to be, I completely understand. waiting is always hard. Prayers for your in between time
Thank you for this reminder. I have been restless for a long time, wanting to move out of state or just to find a house that was in a warmer climate. I live in the northeast and hate the winters. I have prayed that God would move us but so far He has not. My husband has no desire to leave this state. Perhaps it is my attitude that is the big problem, unthankful for what I know God has given us through the years. There are other issues that I am dealing with too but you have helped me to see that perhaps God wants me here. Thank you for your ministry and may God continue to use you to reach the hearts of people. Now I will continue to wait on Him and be content with where I am. Blessing!
In Christ,
Kathy
It is so hard to be where you don’t really want to be, I understand all to well. We need constant reminders of God’s faithfulness! Glad I could help today and hope He reveals His plans to you soon!
Thank you for continuing to lead from where you’ve been. Good Word!
In between is always a hard one for me, still is, but I am working on it
Perfect timing for me to see your message from God. All the plans I had with my life has drastically changed recently and has left me home bound and physically limited. Now I can look around my house and see the changes I wish I had made years ago and now I have no longer any excuses to feel trapped just because of my new limitations.
It is hard to be limited, but we can enjoy the in between, sometimes it is hard though. hope you feel motivated to make some changes you always wanted!
This is right where we are today. Waiting for that house with an acre or two and refusing to buy anything, repaint a different color …or even buy a shower curtain! We are waiting to hear on an offer on a house but if it does not go through, we are taking scriptural advice and settling in. Thank you for this post!
I love this Kim, thanks so much for your beautiful perspective. I love my home and I’m looking forward to someday doing some renovations in the kitchen but for the most part I’m happy where I’m planted. I am however going to share this story with a friend who is miserable in her job and finds it difficult to move forward every day. Thanks for your spiritual words today! 🙂
I needed this today! We are in the process of selling our land and we feel stuck. Offers are strictly for the land and not the house. It will probably be a housing development. So we’ve been told don’t spend money on your house it will be for nothing. So we have started boxing up and cleaning out. Downside for over a year we have had no one over.. no get togethers. Nothing because the house is getting into moving mode. I really needed to hear this because we find ourselves isolated to over silly things. If folks care about me they won’t mind the containers sitting everywhere.. thanks for the push!
Prayers for a sale and until then, I promise people don’t care. It’s great to have a beautifully decorated home, but if that is why people are coming over they aren’t worth having!!!! Hugs!
Boy Kim did this hit home, In the beginning of our marriage we had people to our home constantly, dinner parties that consist of spaghetti and meat balls and cheese plates. Our house was the place to congratulate mid life brought bigger and better dinner parties and bigger and better houses People always staying with us on their way passing through. Never a problem having people for dinner with a min, notice. Now I sit in a Hugh williamsburg house with beautiful things and panic if I think I should invite people. I don’t have the energy to do all I did, even though I keep things in order. I am always worried it’s not clean enough, or should I say not spot enough. Is my cooking still ok. I don’t have the same timing.I think many of our friends are experiencing the same thing as they age. Lack of energy, pains here and there and lack of energy. We just get into a lazy routine. People are what gives a home it’s energy
Linda – I feel you so much! I too am so tired, but I am trying to remind myself that we all need community and even sharing a delivered pizza is worth it! Here’s to new attempts in the new year and letting all the perfection slip away! hugs