My Father's House

My father takes down barns for a living, and he built the house where I was raised. I grew up with 200-year-old beams over my head and wood floors under my feet that my dad laid himself. He used such detail in everything. It was a perfect setting amidst a forest of white birch overlooking a pond.

I know what it means to build a house, the work it took. My dad’s hands and face bear the marks of his years spent building. He built a place where we could rest and be ourselves. After all, isn’t that what makes a house a home? It is a place of freedom—to come as you are.

Much like my dad, we too are building a house, but one for the Lord. Haggai 1:8 says, “Go up to the mountains and bring wood and build the temple, that I may take pleasure in it and be glorified.” God is calling us up, away from our own personal building projects, into the hidden mountains of our hearts to build Him a home where He can rest and come as He is.

He asks us to bring only our humanity and recognize the magnitude of what He accomplished on the cross for us. Because those two things—who He is, and who God has made us to be—bring Him glory.

Let us be meticulous in our caring for this house. The Scripture doesn’t say, “Let God come and build,” it says, “You build.” The Lord is glorified through the labor we invest into building our lives as a habitation for Him. Just as the house my dad built was beautiful in its completion, so too will our lives be. He is worth it all!

- Laura Swift, Second Year Student