The Ultimate Home-Maker: 3 Ways God Transforms Our Understanding of Home

Home is a fraught concept, perhaps especially for mothers. Some of us parent through the pain of a broken home. Some of us have lost those who feel like home to us. Some of us worry our home must look or feel a certain way. Some of us struggle to feel at home in our own houses as dirty dishes, laundry, and scattered toys abound.

We have different stories, but we share the same longing for home, and the ways we lack it cause us pain. Thankfully, God’s Word offers a better story of home that can transform both how we experience home and how we express home to those around us. 

Here are three glorious concepts from the biblical narrative that can help us gain a redeemed experience and expression of home:

1. No One Makes a Home Like God

In the beginning, we learn that no one makes a home like God! Eden—the perfect dwelling place—was characterized by togetherness and abundance, designed for God’s glory and humanity’s good. God thoughtfully shaped the space in anticipation of those who would inhabit it with him. He made it practical and pleasant, caring for Adam and Eve’s physical needs and delighting their senses.[1] Eden didn’t have to be beautiful, but it was!

God’s original design helps us navigate our own home experiences—good or bad. Wonderful experiences are an opportunity to praise God and see a glimmer of the type of home he graciously gives his people. Terrible experiences that glorify an idol or compromise our good invite us to place our hope in God and the home he alone can provide.

This concept also helps us understand how to express home to others. We borrow God’s purposes for home: his glory and humanity’s good. When we care for the physical needs of those in our home and delight them with a meal, clean sheets, or even a candle, this isn’t insignificant—it’s image-bearing. Of course, it’s easy to get caught up in such expressions, but God’s story invites us to regularly interrogate our motives: Am I doing this for my glory or God’s? Am I serving or performing? We honor God and others when we seek to consistently realign our expression of home to God’s purposes.

All the while, we can remember that, like our family members and guests, we mamas also have physical needs and longings to enjoy the comforts of home. When God created the first home, he delighted in it and rested.[2] We can intentionally set aside our tasks at times too or ask others to share in them so we can follow the ultimate Home-Maker’s example.

2. Sin Is the Enemy of Home

Horrifically, in Genesis 3, the first home changed. When the serpent tempted Adam and Eve, they invited sin into their hearts like a welcomed guest. But sin ought never be welcomed! Think of the way Jesus spoke of the serpent in John 10:10. He said, “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.” This part of God’s story reveals another foundational concept: sin is home’s enemy.

When sin stormed in like an intruder, everything changed. Suddenly, Eden’s delight and togetherness were destroyed. After all, when people and peace are compromised, a place is not truly a home. Adam—who once spoke of Eve with poetry—now offered words of blame. The couple who once walked with God now hid from him.

Our home experiences begin the path to redemption when we properly identify sin as the enemy of home. We can finally name the origin of our pain. Ask anyone who’s finally received a long-awaited diagnosis, and they’ll describe the resulting relief. Mama, how has sin intruded into your heart? How has sin intruded into your home? Name this violation and ask God to begin to heal you.

With the enemy properly identified, our expression of home shifts. To be truly hospitable, we must faithfully battle sin. We take care not to entertain our sins or the sins of others. Our homes can become places characterized by that which defeats sin: confession, humility, truth offered in love, and forgiveness. The safest home is the one where the enemy is known, prepared for, and unfailingly addressed.

3. Our Truest Home Awaits

As the biblical narrative continues with stories of humanity searching for the way home, God offers glimmers of the Home he is building. The promised land, the tabernacle, the temple, exile—such stories of home point to the One who said, “I am the way” (John 14:6). 

Through Jesus, God built the way for man to be home with God—and for God to be home with man. How incredible that God the Spirit makes his home in the hearts of his people—the new tabernacle—and that God the Son promises to return one day to make all things new! When he returns, the serpent and intruding sin will be fully conquered, and Jesus will establish the home we’ve always longed for. The place, the people, and the peace will be perfect and permanent. No one can break this family; no intruder can violate this home. We’ll finally and fully be with God, in a city gloriously called “The Lord Is There” (Ezekiel 48:35). This is wonderful news for the homesick heart: Our truest home awaits. 

Because we are on our way home, we can experience our earthly dwelling places in new ways. When homesickness pinches or expectations disappoint, we can consider them invitations from God to meditate on our true home and the Holy Spirit who dwells within us.

And because our truest home awaits, we can also express home here in new ways. Our walls and windows find their purpose in pointing to the true home. Our tables become settings for gospel conversations, our guest rooms opportunities to practice anticipation, our couches and coffee mugs refuges for those made weary by the world, our pillows God’s restoration place as we step into yet another day of walking in exile but headed home. 

Almost Home

Mama, “home” can be a loaded and tender concept, and there’s no doubt you’ve suffered when the God-given longings of your heart didn’t match your reality. Hear the compassion and anticipation in Jesus’s voice when he said, “Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me. In my Father’s house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also” (John 14:1-3).

Perhaps you are like Thomas, who replied, “How can we know the way?” (John 14:5).

Jesus said to Thomas and says to you, too, “I am the way.”

Jesus is the way Home. We are invited, planned for, wanted in this Home. If we are in Christ, he is coming to bring us Home! Until then, dear sisters, may our experiences and expressions of home be a reminder of our truest Home and the One who made the way.

[1] Genesis 2:9-13

[2] Genesis 1:31-2:3