I have a comfortable cabin under jeweled skies on a rocky, forested slope just across the Divide from the Rio Grande’s source. Circumstances allowing, I spend a week there each year. The other 51 weeks of the year, I offer it to a long-time friend, who in turn often loans it to others.
I should probably mention that before I ever stayed there or even knew about it, that friend found the land and bought it, built the cabin and furnished it, and, when not using it as his own summer home, began inviting people he loves to enjoy it gratis—including me.
Paul tells the Colossians, “…all things were created through him and for him,” but completes his claim of ownership in the reconciliation he purchases “through the blood of his cross.” Or as he tells the Corinthians, “You are not your own, for you are bought with a price….”; and the Romans, “whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord’s. For to this end Christ died….” Creation grounds God’s ownership. Redemption builds a cabin and invites us to stay in it.
So we do. But then, a few minutes each day, sometimes a whole day a week, we generously allow God to have the dust he created, the soul he redeemed.
May every moment of the week within which God will so graciously room and comfort us and those we serve belong to its Creator and Redeemer.