My Dream House

Hide me from the secret counsel of the wicked; from the insurrection of the workers of iniquity:
Psalm 64:2

A good friend had a big, long yard. Children would often play there. One autumn we watched as two little girls carried armloads of leaves and arranged them on the ground in a pattern like an archetect's drawing. My friend understood what the girls were doing. They were planning a house and laying it out on the ground. This charming nesting instinct was their preparation for making a home for their families. Blessed be the peace makers, indeed.

Come the winter, little boys would be making snow forts and stockpiling snowballs for the battle about to come. What a terrible thing, you might say, to prepare for war at a tender age, even in play. I believe those children, boys and girls, were enacting what people have done for thousands of years. For the home builders have been defended by the brave souls who battled to keep them alive.

I too, as a child, "played forts" in a sand box, building imaginary defenses, against an enemy about to come. But, slowly, a new thought came into view. I was not then aware, but their was a third way to dream. It was simply flight, take to the woods, and set up your home there.

I fantasized over camping, and not coming back. I slept out under a blanket draped over clothes poles. I spent all day at a nearby woods, cooking bacon over a little camp fire, with a roasted apple for dessert.

But what about my dream house? They make them, and mighty snug they are. I am speaking of course of cot tents. Up off the ground, windows screened against insects, and rainproof. Live there? Many people of this world would be thrilled to have one.

I would be thrilled also. It would not be Solomon's house. It would be akin to Abraham's tent. Together with a cammo hunting blind, it would be my place to dwell until the One who loves us and died for us, returns. Then we will all live in mansions.