Rent Free

Though most folks would love it, the opportunity of living rent free is not a common thing. If someone owns an extra home or two, or apartments,  while they may allow a relative or a friend who is down an out live there rent free for a while so they can get back on their feet, rarely is it a permanent arrangement.


Occasionally, a story about squatters will pop up in the news. Squatters try to live rent free by just moving into an empty place without an invite, but they usually get caught and just move on.


What would your reaction be if squatters took over a place you owned? Or, if you owned a place and some folks moved in and simply refused to pay the rent, so they could live rent free—what would your reaction be?


Would it be a stretch to say that we are all affected by squatters and rent dodgers? I don’t think so. There are things living rent free in my head and I sense if most folks were honest about it, they’d say the same thing. Some of those squatters are typically our pasts (some of the darker areas of our lives that we aren’t proud of), broken relationships, guilt and shame, remorse, anxieties, worries, fears, our demons, our secret sins, and the list goes on and on.

Here’s what I know; the more that I work on kicking the squatters out of my head, the more I feel a sense of peace, contentment, and joy. I also know that kicking those squatters out isn’t a job I can do alone. It takes teamwork and time. With the Lord as captain of the team, assisted by a community of godly folks I engage with on a regular basis, it’s “squatters beware—you ain’t living rent free in my head.”