Draw Near – 365 Guides to Greater Intimacy with GodSample

HOME-TAUGHT SAINTHOOD A little boy once read of a famous holy man who had sat meditating for many years in one location. That night the boy moved a stool into his mother's busy kitchen at suppertime and announced that he, like that famous saint, would not move for ten years. His mother promptly moved him. As he left, he was heard to say through his tears, "I find it's hard to be a saint at home." It is hard to be a saint at home. That's exactly why we have homes. The great and important eternal lessons we learn in this living laboratory, we can learn no other place. If life is indeed a rehearsal for heaven, then it is imperative we learn to forgive, to be tender and kind, to go the second mile, and to give when we do not want to. The give-and-take in our homes and marriages makes us better and more Christ-like people. Remember, God's Word says: For it was fitting for Him, for whom are all things and by whom are all things, in bringing many sons to glory, to make the captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings (Hebrews 2:10). Our homes, labs of human experience, provide the climate for spiritual education. There we learn how to turn sermons into shoe leather. Our marriages do not create problems, they reveal them. When some character flaw is revealed in us, we must take that flaw to our Lord for His help in correcting it.