The House of My Soul

38 x 56 inches
oil and wax and gold on Ikea photo
$4800

The title taken from St Augustine’s Confessions:
“The house of my soul is too small for you to enter. It is in shambles; restore it,” is a plea for God’s mercy and grace to fall on his soul like the gold descending from the heavens.

The “house” metaphor is common in Scripture. The body is God’s house (temple). “Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you?” 1 Corinthians 3:16.

And “We know that if the tent that is our earthly home is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. For in this tent we groan, longing to be clothed with our heavenly dwelling…” Corinthians 5:1 ff.

When we believe in Jesus, he comes to live in us, to make his dwelling with us. “God chose to make known how great among the Gentiles are the riches of the glory of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory,” Colossians 1:27. Thanks be to God for making you a “vessel created for his glory” (Romans 9:22ff) and confess with St. Augustine, that it needs some upkeep and restoration.