My father was a soldier. When I became an adult, I, too, joined the Army. I’ve lived on many Army installations and in various communities.
The most impressive house I have ever seen was on the grounds of Fort McPherson in Georgia. I lived on the fort, and the commanding general’s home was about 150 yards from my home. I walked by it every day on my way to work.
The home was a one-hundred-year-old mansion. It looked out over the installation’s parade field. While I never went inside, the front door was open on a few occasions when I was walking by. The entrance was a rotunda with a large chandelier.
This home was full of history. In the 1930s, an enclosed porch was built onto it. It was called the Roosevelt Porch, named after Franklin Roosevelt, the president of the United States during World War II. Roosevelt—paralyzed from the waist down due to a bout with polio at the age of 39—would often travel from Washington, DC, to Warm Springs, GA, to find relief in the warm waters there. On these trips, he would stop by Ft. McPherson and stay in the mansion overlooking the parade field.
More recently, Colin Powell, the first black Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the first black Secretary of State, lived in that mansion. I often wondered, as I walked by that historic home, who had been within its walls and what discussions had taken place there.
Each time I tried to look inside through the front door, I was hoping against hope that the current commanding general would invite me in. That never happened. I also wondered what it would actually have been like to live in the mansion. That never happened, either.
I left Ft. McPherson in 1999 and had never returned. Recently, I was traveling through Atlanta with some friends. I told them they needed to see this “cool” house. The installation had been closed and bought by a movie mogul, but it would be great to see the mansion again after all these years.
I was amazed to find that the surrounding neighborhood was now crime-infested. When we entered the old installation, there was a guardhouse. We were able to go about 500 yards inside, but then there was a large fence. Every twenty yards, signs on the fence proclaimed: “No trespassing. Violators will be prosecuted.” I asked the guard if there was any way we could see the old parade field and the mansion that overlooked it. He said, “No.” The owner had not done anything with the old installation, and it was all overgrown with weeds. I suppose he put the fence up so that homeless people would not take up residence in the old homes, including the mansion with Roosevelt’s Porch. Nobody lived in it. I peered through the fence and saw the surrounding neighborhood in disarray.
It depressed me. I knew that beautiful, historic house was in shambles. Nobody lived in it. You can’t even visit it.
Before the Lord died, He gave instructions to His disciples. Famously, He said, “In My Father’s house are many mansions; if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you” (NKJV). This verse makes it sound as though every believer will have a really cool house—a mansion—to live in when we are with the Lord. We will have a house like the one I loved at Ft. McPherson.
But the word mansion is not a good translation. The Greek word literally means a “dwelling place” or “room.” Many suggest that we will live in the New Jerusalem (Rev 21:2-4) and that every believer will have a dwelling place in it.
I suppose many of us would say that a mansion would be better than a “room” in the New Jerusalem! But we can be sure that is not the case. I don’t know what these dwelling places will be like, but I know they will be better than the mansion I was fascinated with on that military installation.
Those dwelling places will never fall into disrepair. Just think of those who will live in them. Think of the visitors. Think of the discussions that will take place in them. Think of the things that we will see in eternity from the windows of those rooms.
We will see Biblical heroes, like those mentioned in Hebrews 11. We will walk by their dwelling places. They will invite us in.
I loved that mansion on Ft. McPherson. I will love whatever room the Lord gives me even more.
