At a certain age, the question changes. At twenty-two, people ask what you are studying or where you are working. By thirty-five, especially at a family gathering, the question is more often some version of “So, you buy yet?” It is asked kindly, usually. But it lands with weight, because in many of our communities a house is not just shelter. It is proof. Proof that you worked hard, that you were sensible, that you made something of yourself.
There is some truth in that. Owning a home often does take discipline and sacrifice, and many families rightly celebrate a first set of keys. But when an address becomes the measure of a life, something starts to go wrong, for those who have one and those who do not.
The disciples come back with good news
In Luke 10, Jesus sends out seventy of His followers, and they come back thrilled. Things worked. “Lord, even the demons are subject to us in Your name,” they report (Luke 10:17). It is the kind of result any of us would want to bring home.
Jesus does not dismiss what happened. But He redirects their joy: “Do not rejoice in this, that the spirits are subject to you, but rather rejoice because your names are written in heaven” (Luke 10:20).
He is not telling them that results do not matter. He is telling them not to build their sense of who they are on results, because results move. Some seasons go well and some do not. Being known by God does not move in the same way.
A house is a result
A house is one of the biggest results most of us ever achieve. That is exactly why it is so tempting to rest our identity on it, and why that rest is unsteady.
Consider how much can change. Interest rates rise and the monthly payment becomes a strain. A job ends. A storm takes the roof. A marriage breaks down and the house is sold. Property values in an area fall, and the equity that felt like security shrinks. None of these things is a moral failure, but each can feel like one if the house has become the evidence of our worth.
Picture a man in his fifties who built a fine home in the nineties, the first in his family to own anything. For years it was his pride. Then a business setback forced him to sell and rent a small apartment. What surprised him most was not the smaller kitchen or the landlord’s rules. It was the shame, and the way he avoided church functions for months because he did not want to be asked where he was living now.
His address had changed. He had not. But he had been measuring himself by the address for so long that he struggled to tell the difference.
The quiet weight on renters
The same pressure falls, perhaps more heavily, on people who rent. Many renters are doing everything right: paying on time, saving what they can, caring for the place they live in. Some are renting by choice, because of work, family or the simple sense that it suits this season. Others are priced out of areas where they grew up, or working through debts that make a mortgage unrealistic for now.
Yet they may still carry the sense that they are behind, that they have not quite arrived. In some families, renting at forty is spoken of in a lowered voice. That is a burden Jesus never placed on anyone. He Himself said, “Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay His head” (Luke 9:58).
Where to stand instead
If our names are written in heaven, then the house, owned or rented, large or small, becomes what it should be: a place to live and love and serve, not a scorecard. That shift changes how we make decisions.
- We are less likely to overstretch on a mortgage to buy a house that impresses rather than one that fits.
- We can wait longer to buy, if waiting is wiser, without feeling like failures.
- We can downsize, move or sell when life requires it, without our sense of self collapsing.
- We can open our homes to others more freely, because the house is a tool for hospitality rather than a display.
- We can stop asking “So, you buy yet?” in a way that makes people feel small.
Rejoice, but for the right reason
None of this means we should not celebrate a new home. Do celebrate. Pray over the rooms, invite the neighbours, cook something good. A house is a gift, and gifts deserve thanks.
But let the deeper joy rest somewhere else. The house may appreciate or fall in value. The mortgage may be paid off or refinanced. The address may change three more times before life is done. Through all of it, a person known by God has somewhere to stand that no valuation can touch.
That is worth remembering at the next family gathering, whichever side of the question you are on.
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