“In my Father’s house are many rooms; if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you.” John 14:2
Have you ever felt unsettled? Like you’re not sure what’s going to happen next, but whatever it is, it’s just a little bit scary? Or maybe that unknown is a lot scary. Do you ever feel that your life is spinning out of control? Or perhaps you think that your life would be perfectly controlled if only the world around us weren’t in such chaos. No matter how hard we try, we just can’t seem to make things go the way we want them to go. And by “things,” I mean people, circumstances, or anything else we foolishly think we should be able to control.
This very familiar verse occurred at what we commonly call The Last Supper. Jesus was sharing Passover meal with His disciples and was also teaching them. What I’ve always found so interesting about this verse and the ones around it is that Jesus is offering them peace and comfort before they even knew they were going to need it. He knew that He was going to be arrested that night, given a rigged trial, and condemned to die the next day. Within just a few hours he would be taken from their presence and they would be bereft and very scared. Even while facing the most difficult situation that has ever been endured or ever will be, He was thinking of them. He would be taking on the sins of the world, but He was still concerned for the loneliness and fear they would be facing and was preparing them for it. Do you think that when they mostly all deserted Him and He hung dying, they were thinking of these words? Or that after He was in the tomb, they were comforted by what He said? Or do you think that it wasn’t until much later that they recalled these words and realized the importance of them?
God still prepares us today. He’s constantly getting us ready for what lies ahead. Since we don’t know what’s in front of us, we often do realize that until we look back. That’s when we realize that God was in the “chaos” all along, that He was hard at work preparing us, shaping and molding us long before we knew what was going to hit us. In those times of uncertainty and chaos, we can take comfort in know that God has already gone ahead of us. He’s prepared the road we’re currently walking and He’s prepared us for that road. In addition, He’s preparing us for what we’re going to face. But He doesn’t even stop there. At the end of our time on this earth, He has a place prepared for us to be with Him. It will be beautiful and spacious place, a home with loving family and full of opportunities to love and serve our God. When we get there, we’ll realize that we’ve never really been home before. This earth is not our home. The place God is preparing will be Home like nothing else we could experience.