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“In My Father’s house are many mansions…I go to prepare a place for you” (John 14:2).
As I write this in January, 2023, it is exactly 200 years since an American named John Howard Payne wrote the song, “Mid pleasures and palaces though you may roam, be it ever so humble, there’s no place like home.” An Englishman named Henry Bishop wrote the tune for it, and it became very popular. Almost all of us can relate to the words of the song, for we can associate happy memories with our home, even though we may like to travel.
However, some people have only unhappy memories of their home, for they were not treated very well at home. Others perhaps have no home, and long for a place where they can find rest, fellowship, comfort, warmth, and shelter. John Howard Payne spent much of his time in Europe, and often did not have a home to which to go. On one occasion on a damp, cold evening, he sat huddled outside a wealthy home in London, England, cold and friendless, and inside the house heard the people singing around the piano. They were actually singing the song that he had written, while he was outside with no home!
How wonderful it is to know the Lord Jesus as our Savior, and to know God as our Father! Then we can look forward to spending eternity in the Father’s house, for that is our home. Most of us probably have a comfortable home to which to go, but to look forward to being in the Father’s house is beyond anything we can experience in this world.
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