Visiting a modern, well furnished home can make us suddenly aware of how out of date and in need of repair our own home is.  The longing to live in a beautiful setting ourselves can release energy in us to take on the task and inconvenience of basic renovation. A glimpse of such a worthy goal can often release strength previously dormant .

Through diverse pictures and symbols Jesus admonishes us in his preaching not to be content only with "life on the pilot light", but to reach for the fullness which God has prepared for us and with which God wants to fill us.  The first miracle recorded in the Gospel of John, the changing of water into wine at the wedding at Cana, is like an announcement.  (John 2:11).  This story clarifies with symbols what Jesus meant when he said he came that we might have life "abundantly" in "overflow" (literally translated in John 10:10).  Those who tasted this wine experienced how flat the first wine (vs. 9 ff.) was.

Let us turn back to the first picture.  A host of texts in the New Testament address the mystery of faith that a Christian can be the "home" of God (John 14:23) and consequently the "Temple of the Holy Spirit". (I. Cor. 6:19).  God, the Holy Spirit, desires "to remain", "to live" in people.

Comments:
Because this meditation deals with the symbolic image which accompanies the  purpose of this  entire book (building our spiritual house ), I want to call attention here to other passages where  this image is taken up in different ways : I Cor. 3:16 ff:  "You are God's Temple", II Cor. 5:1-3;  the house of our earthly life; Rom. 8:9: "if the spirit of God really dwells in you"; John 2:19-22; Matt. 26:61; 27:40: "The Temple of his body"; Rev. 3:20: "I stand at the door and knock" also (in symbolic sense); Luke 2:7: "There was no place for them in the inn"; and John 1:11: "He came to his own home, and his own people received him not."

John 14:23 - God promises to come to us and reside in us

Consider the differences; linger a short time with each image ...

• - when a person wants to live with you for a longer time...
• - when a person wants to rent from you...
• - when you give or sell your house to this person...
• - when the house belongs to both of you because you have formed a partnership

Relate all of this to God's desire "to live with you". .

Consider the various points of comparison offered by changing the ownership of the house ,

• - restructuring the space...
• - sorting out unusable furnishings...
• - renovating valuable old furniture...
• - clearing out the basement. .
• - discovering forgotten valuables...

Relate all this to God's desire to "live with you". .

Consider the understanding a new owner gains regarding the previous owner

• - when the new owner does not deny living privileges to the previous owner...
• - when the new owner renovates the entire house... (II Cor. 5:17)
• - when the new owner bears all the costs of reparations...
• - when the new owner wants to live with the previous owner in the entire house from now  on...

Relate all this to God's desire to "live with you" ...

- I Cor. 6:19 (" Your body is a Temple of the Holy Spirit")

In your imagination go through your body from head to toe taking each part seriously,   thus opening every part of yourself to the life of the Holy Spirit flowing through you...

-  Text meditation

„In everyone lives a picture of what one wants to be
As long as one is not that, one is not fully free."  (Angelus Silesius)

Repeat and deepen the exercise week 4 day 6