Vander Well Manor

Let the message of Christ dwell among you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom through psalms, hymns, and songs from the Spirit, singing to God with gratitude in your hearts.
Colossians 3:16 (NIV)

Tomorrow is Saturday, which means that Wendy’s and my morning ritual of coffee and conversation will include the weekend edition of the Wall Street Journal. This always includes their “Mansion” section in which they do a spotlight feature complete with photo spread of an audacious mansion somewhere. Wendy loves her weekly trip down the rabbit hole looking at what people do with their mansions, the views, how they allocate space, how they decorate, and how the environment “feels.” My mind usually goes straight to calculating the maintenance costs and utilities on that much square footage.

While we will never know what it’s like to have a mansion at that level, Wendy and I have been truly blessed to enjoy some wonderful homes. In 2008, Wendy and I signed a purchase agreement with my parents to buy their place on Lake of the Ozarks in Missouri. For over 15 years, much of our summer was spent traveling back and forth to central Missouri and hosting family and friends at the lake. This past December, that season of our life ended and we sold our lake home to friends here in Pella who will carry the blessing of that home forward for a new generation.

With summer now in full swing, Wendy and I have been having many people ask us if we regret the decision and how we are faring not being at the lake. I’m happy to report that it really was a divine appointment and God’s timing was perfect. One of the things that Wendy and I have rediscovered as our time and attention has shifted back to our home in Pella is just how much we love our house which I have always referred to as Vander Well Manor. There have been so many little projects and things that we’ve put off for years because we were spending so much time and so many resources at the lake. It’s been fun to truly dwell in our home this summer and fully enjoy it inside and out.

Today’s chapter is one of those chapters that is so full of instruction and spiritual truth that I hardly know how to focus in on one thing on which to meditate and blog about. When that happens, I typically wait for Holy Spirit to cause something to deeply resonate in my spirit. This morning, it was this phrase: “Let the message of Christ dwell among you richly…”

As Wendy and I have rediscovered the joy of truly dwelling at home, it provided a really powerful metaphor in the quiet this morning for what Paul is getting at as he uses that phrase. Along my life journey, my experience has been that relatively few people allow Christ’s message to dwell richly within them. I observe that Christ’s message pays a visit on Sunday mornings. It acts as a homey and inspirational message on a piece wall decor that fades into the background and is subsequently forgotten. To “dwell richly” has a much deeper connotation.

To dwell means to “live in.” Dwelling means residing, being fully present, and actively occupying. When someone dwells in a home, there is constancy and the perpetual impact of presence.

Which leads me to ask myself, are Christ’s words and message dwelling in me, in my life, in my marriage, in my home, among my friends, and in the community of our circles of influence? Is Christ’s message dwelling in me, not merely as wall decor, but actively occupying with constancy and perpetual impact of presence?

Tomorrow morning Wendy will show me photos of some mansion on Martha’s Vineyard or some such place and wax eloquent with her strong opinions regarding the space and decorations. I can tell you that the mansion will be empty, because there are never people in the photographs. Each week the photos are of a giant, opulent, perfectly appointed empty mansion in which no one appears to be dwelling. What a great metaphor for how I don’t want my life to be. If I have a great life and an earthly existence filled with all this world has to offer, but Christ and His message are not dwelling within, then my life is just an empty earthly mansion that I will have to give up one day.

If you know anyone who might be encouraged by today’s post, please share.

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Even though the destroyer has destroyed Judah,
the Lord will restore its honor.
Israel’s vine has been stripped of branches,
but he will restore its splendor.
Nahum 2:2 (NLT)

Eight years ago this summer Wendy and I bought our little brick tudor house just a block north of the town square. I dubbed it “Vander Well Manor” on Foursquare, which never fails to make my heart smile. It is such a quaint little home that I have a hard time not romanticizing it. When I look at our house from the street I think of how Obi Wan Kenobi described the light saber: “an elegant [house] for a more civilized age.” It was about seventy years old when we bought it and was showing significant signs of age and wear. It has no central air conditioning and an ancient boiler from somewhere near the Eisenhower administration. We have slowly been updating and fixing what it desperately needs in the moment. We have done a lot, but there is so much more to do.

Over the past couple of years Wendy and I have engaged in a long, on-going conversation about the investment required in continuing to fix our little house up to bring it to the state we both really want it to be. Do we keep pumping time, energy and resources into the old house or do we invest in building something new from the ground up? It’s hard not to look at the numbers and think that selling this place and building something new might be the wiser investment. We have gone back and forth, but we keep ending up choosing restoration over replacement. We love this house. The girls come back and call it home. It is in this place that we’ve shared so much of life.

Beyond that, there is something spiritual in the theme of restoration that resonates deep within me. Throughout God’s Message we see God restoring what is old, broken and discarded and bringing out of it something more precious and powerful. The ancient, childless couple Abram and Sara become parents of the nations. The old and dishonored Moses is transformed into a leader for the ages. David, a scalawag bandit with a price on his head, who wanders in the desert for twenty years rises to unite the nation and rule for 40 years. In today’s chapter Nahum envisions the restoration of Israel. Jesus’ bloody, crucified body is raised to new life of eternal splendor. Twelve largely uneducated men of questionable character carry Jesus’ message to the nations and literally turn the world upside down. I once was lost but now am found, was blind but now I see. Restoration through God’s amazing grace.

So, perhaps I’m over spiritualizing it. Perhaps I’m waxing poetic so as to feel better about the money we just spent to pour a new front stoop and patio. The truth is that I love word pictures. They speak to the depths of my soul. Each time I drive home and pull into the driveway and then into the rotting garage with a door that won’t close, I am reminded that I too am a work in progress. Restoration takes time, energy and resources. God is not finished with me and, thankfully, hasn’t given up on me.