Where Do You Live?
Dwelling Where I Was Never Meant to Live
by Megan Rea
“So, where do you live?”
Seems like an innocuous enough question, right?
“I live in the suburbs of Chicago.”
“I live just down the street.”
“I live in a brownstone walk-up in New York City, steps away from the local coffee shop I effortlessly jog by every morning.” (Sorry, there goes my dream life talking again.)
However, at one point in my life, I’m pretty sure if you had asked me where I lived, my most honest answer would’ve been, “in my head.”
Have you ever had seasons like that? You’re fairly certain real life is moving forward all around you. Still, the reality of your current circumstances has you dwelling—not with your feet on the ground and your heart pointed to heaven—but rather in desperate rumination on your situation and how to change it.
You, like me, may deem your mental spinning as “responsible.”
(Shout out to all my fellow Enneagram 1s!) You are a competent adult who will figure her way out of this. You assume that, thought by thought, you are digging your way out of this dark tunnel. Except, in actuality, you are only drilling down deeper and deeper into your pain until pretty soon “dwelling” isn’t where you are, but what you do. You dwell so hard on yourself that your mind has forgotten to dwell on anything else.
And that’s the spot in which I found myself.
My high school sweetheart, Chris, and I had been married for five years. We were young, in good health, and had a small house, a dog—we even had the picket fence, for crying out loud.
(But it wasn’t white—that would’ve been too much, even for me.)
We loved the Lord, were serving full-time in youth ministry, and thought it was high time to have some kids of our own. Everything was happening just as it should have in our estimation.
We had names and plans and colors picked out for their rooms, and then—the plans changed.
“I’m sorry, Mrs. Rea, we just don’t know what’s wrong with you.”
And with that, doctor number fourteen practically wrote me a prescription to camp out in my head. His words took up residence in me. They became not only an invitation but a confirmation from a professional to dwell on all that was wrong with me until I figured out how to fix it.
Because that usually works very well.
Romans 12:2 tells believers to “fix your attention on God. You’ll be changed from the inside out” (MSG).
And I can attest that the inverse is also true.
When we fix our attention on everything but God, we will also be changed from the inside out; we will quickly become a shell of the person we want to be and who we truly know ourselves to be.
I didn’t mean to dwell so hard on myself, scout’s honor. I really didn’t. I just forgot there was another option, because pain makes us really good at forgetting things.
One of the biggest things I forgot in that season was that the God of the universe, with whom I had had a relationship since before I learned how to blow bubbles with my gum, loved me, and I forgot that I could trust him. I know, I know, somebody bust out the Sunday school felt board—we just went back to kindergarten. But I think that pain’s most subtle strategy is going after the very foundation of everything we believe.
Pain makes us really good at forgetting God’s goodness.
If our situation can shake us and cause us to doubt the goodness of God, it alters where we dwell, from the security of his promise to the shakiness of a foundation we’ve constructed from our own circumstances.
Friend, I don’t know what situation has caused you to turn inward and dwell there, but I do know that God sees you. And he is not turning a blind eye. He simply sees the entirety of a timeline that we only have a mere glimpse of. And that same God adores you, is proud of you for still standing, and is offering you a way to rise above your circumstances and dwell differently. Starting today.
Your circumstances may not change. (Spoiler alert: mine didn’t either.) But what can change is what you choose to dwell on. We often read Romans 12:1–2 as a mandate, a command, a new rule we best live by…or else.
But what if we changed the tone in which we read that passage? What if we saw it as a divine invitation—one in which Jesus extends his hand to you with a massive smile on his face, saying, “You get to dwell differently”?
“So here’s what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You’ll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you” (Romans 12:1–2 MSG).
God has a lavish dwelling place already prepared for you as his daughter and co-heir with his Son. And yes, friend, I know—we will have trouble in this world. But I also know that trouble and pain don’t get the last word. You have a choice in how you dwell; you can live in a dark and dimly lit space, alone with your thoughts. Or, you can choose to open up again. You can choose to trust again. You can choose to dwell differently again. And I, for one, am cheering you on to try.
“I can’t tell you how much I long for you to enter this wide-open, spacious life. We didn’t fence you in. The smallness you feel comes from within you. Your lives aren’t small, but you’re living them in a small way. I’m speaking as plainly as I can and with great affection. Open up your lives. Live openly and expansively!” (2 Cor. 6:11–13 MSG).
Megan Rea, along with her husband Chris, shares hope, humor, and practical guidance each week on YouTube. @nosmalllife.me
Scripture quotations are from The Message.