In a lot of homes there is a list somewhere. It might be pinned to the fridge with a magnet, or saved on a phone, or simply carried in someone’s head. Fix the back door. Tile the veranda. Paint the front before Christmas. Put grille on the windows. Replace that kitchen counter, finally. Some items have been there for years.
A list like that is not a bad thing. It is a sign that you care about your home. But it has a way of taking over your field of vision. You walk into your own house and see only what is unfinished. You visit a friend’s newly built place and come home quiet, measuring your rooms against theirs. The list becomes a lens, and everything looks slightly disappointing through it.
Where the eyes rest
Paul wrote to the church at Colossae: “Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things” (Colossians 3:2, NIV). It is easy to read that as a call to ignore ordinary life, as if thinking about roofs and rent were somehow unspiritual. But the rest of the chapter is full of ordinary life. It talks about how husbands and wives treat each other, how parents speak to children, how people work. Setting the mind on things above does not mean leaving the house. It means changing what governs how we live in it.
When the list is in charge, the home becomes a project that is never finished and a standard we never quite meet. When Christ is in charge, the same home becomes a place to practise the things Paul goes on to name: compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, patience, forgiveness, and over all of them, love (Colossians 3:12–14). None of those depend on whether the veranda is tiled.
A kitchen counter conversation
Picture a couple sitting up late with the list between them and the calculator out. One of them wants to borrow to finish the extension this year. The other wants to wait. The conversation is getting sharper. Neither is wrong to care about the house. But at a certain point the real question is no longer about blocks and steel. It is whether they will be patient with each other, whether they will listen, whether peace will rule in their hearts, to borrow Paul’s phrase from verse 15.
Changing focus might mean putting the list down for one evening and asking a different question: what would honour God in how we decide this? That question does not always give a quick answer about the loan. It usually does change the tone of the conversation.
Work done as if for the Lord
Later in the chapter Paul tells believers to work at whatever they do with all their heart, as working for the Lord and not for people (Colossians 3:23). That changes how we approach even the dullest job on the list. Painting a room becomes more than a chore to get done before visitors arrive. It can be an act of care for the people who live there and an offering of good work to God.
It also changes how we treat the people we hire. The mason and the plumber are not simply line items on a budget. Paying them fairly, on time, and speaking to them with respect is part of setting the mind on things above in the middle of a very earthly project.
Seeing the house again
Try this. Walk through your home slowly, not with the list, but with thanks. Here is the room where the baby took her first steps. Here is the table where the family gathered after the funeral. Here is the step where your father used to sit in the evenings. The paint may be peeling, but the house holds a story of God’s faithfulness.
Then, if you like, pick up the list again. Choose one item and do it well. The house will still need work next year, and the year after that. Houses always do. But your focus does not have to be on what is missing.
For reflection
- When you walk into your home, what do you notice first: what is lacking, or what has been given?
- Is there a household decision where peace between you has been set aside in favour of getting the job done?
Lord Jesus, lift my eyes from the list to You. Let Your peace rule in this home, and let the work of our hands be done for You. Teach us to see our house with thankful eyes. Amen.
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