Conversations at Midnightn#16: When Heaven Comes Home

Last week we found ourselves in an upper room. Men and women, shoulder to shoulder, waiting for a promise. They huddled, prayed, and trusted together. This waiting wasn't quiet; it was preparatory.

The Holy Spirit was forming a people who would carry the good news of King Jesus into the world. This week, I'd like to begin somewhere entirely different: a school library.

Years ago, I ran a charity in Saskatchewan with my good friend, Marian Been, called Stephen's Backpacks, a sister organization to the one founded by an extraordinary young man named Stephen McPhee and his parents, Jim and Nancy, in Airdrie, Alberta. Their mission is beautifully simple:

Delivering Hope. Changing Lives.

We would gather a few classes at a time in the school library. The backpacks sat neatly stacked, waiting to be handed out, but they weren't really the reason we'd come.

We came to talk about hope and to encourage the kids to, in the words of Stephen, "Dream Out Loud."

One of the first questions we asked was simple: "What do you dream of becoming when you grow up?"

The room usually became very quiet, confusion registering on their faces. Finally, a little hand went up. "Spider-Man." Another voice piped up, "Superman!"

The responses broke my heart, as these weren't career choices so much as escape hatches.

In these neighbourhoods, gang life and prostitution were normalized into everyday life. Their dreams could only reach as far as the world they knew. Perhaps that was the source of the confusion; their futures were already determined: be like Dad, the gang member, or Mom, the street worker.

I learned not to underestimate hope to enlarge imagination. When we first started working in these neighbourhoods, we knew we couldn't change the details of how or where the children were presently living. Our mission was to assist, encourage dreams, offer snacks, and try to make significant memories. What we lacked in the short term, however, was achievable in the long term: show them there was something to reach for, and try to be there to give a hand up (rather than a handout) when they were ready to act on that dream.

Nancy and the Holy Spirit taught me that.

A healthy charity tries to create opportunities for people to experience hope and growth until, hopefully, they can stand on their own two feet and pay it forward. It's not really about handouts. It's about opening a doorway to hope.

Over the next few years, faithful school teachers invested in these children. Volunteers kept showing up with backpacks, seeds of hope quietly planted.

One year we had the privilege of hosting Stephen himself as he visited these schools.

Stephen is autistic and naturally very shy. His dream, even as a small boy, was breathtaking in its simplicity: to end child homelessness in Canada. However, as he walked into the library, something remarkable happened. The room let out a collective gasp as he and his foster brothers and sisters walked in; the kids couldn't take their eyes off them.

Here was a young teen and his foster siblings who had faced their own enormous challenges, yet had given themselves to helping other children discover hope. For the first time, as Stephen's mom, Nancy McPhee, invited the students to share their dreams, every hand shot into the air, some waving wildly.

"I want to be a teacher!"

"I want to be a doctor!"

It may not sound extraordinary. But in that neighbourhood, something had changed. The children hadn't simply learned to answer my questions differently. They had imagined a different future.

I've often wondered if Paul was doing something similar when he wrote to the believers in Ephesus. I wonder if he was helping the church imagine a different future.

Could former enemies be reconciled? Could walls of hostility finally come down?

Could strangers become members of God's household? Could ordinary homes become little outposts of the Kingdom?

It may seem to us that Paul began his letter in someone's kitchen, but he actually began it in the heavens. Before he taught us how to walk as believers, he reminded us where we're seated: in Christ. We aren't just occupying a seat at the table, either. We are chosen, adopted into a family, dearly loved children.

Everything that follows grows out of that astonishing reality until something beautiful happens. Paul begins bringing heaven home:

Walk worthy of your calling. Walk in love, as children of light. Be filled with the Spirit.

Without noticing, we've left the throne room and stepped through someone's front door.

In the kitchen, there's a husband making breakfast and a wife folding laundry in the living room. Back in the playroom, children are learning what forgiveness looks like as parents try to nurture tender hearts before they can raise successful adults. The gospel has found a home.

It's easy to imagine important Kingdom work happening out there in the blue yonder. We picture missionaries crossing oceans, pastors preaching from pulpits, and evangelists filling stadiums. Meanwhile, the average Joe or Jane is standing in the front hallway trying to wrestle a toddler into a snowsuit while the baby has once again pulled off a sock. Oscar can't find his mitten, and Theodora insists she absolutely does not need a hat.

Then, just as the last zipper reaches the top, her little voice announces,

"I have to go pee."

Joe and Jane are already exhausted—and they haven't even made it to the front door.

Hardly the stuff of advancing the Kingdom.Or is it?

Before Paul ever tells believers to stand firm in the armour of God, he spends three chapters telling us where we sit and two telling us where and how we are to walk. I wonder if that's because this is where so much of the work happens.

Maybe changing diapers isn't in competition with Kingdom work, and preparing lunches isn't an interruption. Perhaps balancing the family budget isn't getting in the way of serving Christ. Could it be that when the King is welcomed into a home, ordinary moments are transformed into holy ground?

Maybe an outpost of the Kingdom doesn't look like what we imagine. It doesn't need a perfect family, a spotless house, or clean faces. It isn't looking for children who always behave or parents who never misplace their patience—or their car keys.

Heaven looks like family; members of God's household who used to be strangers but are now cherished.

Paul doesn't invite the Ephesians to reflect homes that mirror the empire's drive to expand wealth and protect the nobility. He invites them to imagine something we used to call a naturally supernatural kingdom reality: ordinary homes practicing peace by choosing forgiveness, whispering prayers over sleepy heads, and welcoming neighbours through an open door. Christ's reconciling love will be lived here before it can be spoken with authority out there.

So if you are one of the young couples rocking a baby who won't sleep, or a father asking his son's forgiveness, or a mother praying over tomorrow's grocery budget, be encouraged!

To us, it may not feel heroic or look like advancing the Kingdom.

But heaven sees a little outpost taking shape, a place where the King gets to come home.

A Closing Thought

Stephen's Backpacks continues its beautiful work today:

Delivering Hope. Changing Lives.

As I reflected on Stephen's story this week, I couldn't help but wonder if every Christian home is called to echo that same heartbeat:To become a place where hope is delivered and lives are changed, one ordinary home at a time.

https://stephensbackpacks.com/build-a-backpack/back-to-school/

https://youtu.be/4pLkQ5xoQDE