Meeting God In Our Homes

The Kingdom of God is in your midst. (Luke 17:21)

Other translations say: “The Kingdom of God is within you.” Or, “…is among you.”

These words of Jesus resonate with the Old Testament promise of God to His People:

I will place My residence among you, and I will not reject you. I will walk among you and be your God, and you will be My people.
– Leviticus 26:11&12

God is with us in our homes during this season. He is inside us in profound ways – ready to speak and commune with us any time we want or need. He really is present among our families – even when we don’t sense it – especially when we come together to focus on Him as His tribal people.

Why is this so? How is He uniquely "with us" when we come together to focus on Him? 

Jewish spirituality regarded the written word of God – the Torah – in a two-fold manner:

In the first sense, the Torah’s words, themselves, reveal a knowledge of God.

This sort of “knowledge” is akin to a “vision” of God. The words communicate a representation of who He is.

In the second sense, knowledge of God is revealed to (and through) individuals who enter into the Torah's story – who participate in the life of God.

In this second sense “knowledge of God” is “intimate knowledge” – the way a husband and wife grow to know each other through intimate interaction. It is knowledge coming from an experience of life with Him.

The idea is this: Families who adopt ways to live day-to-day as God’s People end up understanding and experiencing God more intimately. Even by simply gathering around a sermon, a prayer, a reading, or a song, God is with them, among them, and in them in a unique sense. 

One help in living as God's People is to internalize sections of Scripture you want to take to heart. Committing Scripture to memory helps internalize its principles – fusing them to our muscle memory.

Our family only recently began to memorize Scripture together. For a long time it was too ominous. But one reason put us over the edge: we wanted to prepare our children – and ourselves – to navigate these times with confidence. You might remember us writing a few weeks ago about how we eased into doing this. [link here]

Another way Sarah and I invoke God being “with us” in these times is this:

Each night we pray a simple prayer. That God would surround our home, protect it, and make it a sanctuary of His Kingdom. You can read a full version of this prayer at the very end of Chapter One in The Journey guidebook. [link here]