In my Father’s House there are many rooms

“I don’t belong here.”

“No one understands me.”

“Do I have a place that I can fit in?”

At some point in our lives we may experience this feeling of disconnect with the people around us. These feelings may arise at the workplace, family, community, and even in church. We feel alienated, alone and we just don’t fit in. I know I did especially just after retirement. The familiar pat answers to spiritual questions seemed rather shallow. I had too many unanswered questions. I felt like a square peg in a round hole, an outsider.

Jesus says:-

“In my Father’s house are many rooms; if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am.”

John 14:2

What are these rooms? To some people these rooms refer to a celestial place we go to in heaven when we die[1]. But are there such rooms on this side of heaven?

It was in BLC, Rumah Papa that I experienced that these rooms that Jesus speaks of are rooms designed for our earthly existence.

“In my Father’s house there are many rooms… there is always room. for you.” This is our ethos.

Every person has a different idea of what these rooms should look like. For some, an ideal room is a cosy chamber where there is a warm fireplace, blankets and hot chocolate. For some it is a spatial environment as wide, high, long as we wish it to be, with dancing stars as the ceiling. It can appear as a mansion.

Whatever it is in our imagination, it is a home, a place where we can be safe to breathe, live, think and have our being. It is a safe space where we can shed all the negative, toxic, dark thoughts. A place where light displaces the darkness.

Most important is the Person who has prepared this room for us. Jesus makes room for us. He makes us safe, comfortable. He restores our soul. In this place we are free to express ourselves. He gives us a voice and place we can fit in. A place of communion with Him and with others.

In these rooms, Jesus is the Maker where He dwells with the Father and the Holy Spirit. It is a sacred place, a Holy Place. It is a place where love abounds. Where God is, there is love. It is a place of communion with the Divine. We enter this Holy Place by obeying His commands and by loving Him and all His people and creation. He does not insist on obedience for compliance’s sake only to Lord over us. NO! It is not for His ego that we capitulate. We obey His commandments so that we may live.

In the same way, we too have to make space in our hearts for the Father, Son and the Holy Spirit to dwell within us.[2] With the help of God, we clear out the evils of pride, greed, lust, envy, gluttony, anger, sloth from our space, and welcome Him into our lives. His Light, Love, Peace, Joy, forgiveness, strength, pours into the abode. The blind can now see through the eyes of faith. We abide in Him and He abides in us.

Just like our Father, we reciprocate and make room for others and vice versa. We invite others to enter these dwelling places, to live in them and to find their place. We extend the principal house to add rooms so that the newcomers can find a place to call home and become members of the family of God.[3] No one is excluded.

BLC made a space for me, and for that I give thanks. Rumahpapa gave me a place where I can practice my faith, ask questions and start many conversations without prejudgment. I believe many have found a safe space in BLC too.  BLCians come from different backgrounds and different persuasions in faith.

Besides the Lutherans, there are Baptists, Methodists, Pentecostals, Presbyterians, traditionalists, people who speak in tongues and those who don’t. We have welcomed people professing a different faith and even no-faith. There have been Malaysians, Asians, Americans, Australians, Scandinavians, Germans, Europeans, Japanese, Yemenis, Middle Easterners and many others who have entered the doors of BLC. Each person has left their mark in BLC. All are free to stay or exit and are welcomed to return.

Indeed in my Father’s house there are many rooms ….there is always room for you. Will we make a place in our hearts for God too? Will we make rooms for others?

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[1] Did Christ really go to prepare a place for me?. Crosswalk.com

[2] John 14:23

[3] I go now to prepare a place for you – Redeeming God