If Jesus Came to Your House

Lois Blanchard Eades’ poem titled “If Jesus Came to Your House” touched me when I heard it on the radio in the 1950s.

Woodrow Wilson “Red” Sovine partially sang but mostly recited Eades’ poem on the 1956 recording I heard. Sovine died in 1980, after recording many sentimental “trucker songs” such as “Teddy Bear,” a tale about a crippled boy who lost his truck driver father in a highway accident and kept his father’s CB radio to contact truckers. Sovine recited the popular “If Jesus Came to Your House” with great feeling and with heart-rending, instrumental music playing in the background.

Here are some of the words in that poem:

“If Jesus came to your house to spend a day or two, if He came unexpectedly, I wonder what you’d do? Oh, I know you’d give your nicest room to such an honored guest, and all the food you’d serve to Him would be the very best.  

“And you would keep assuring Him you’re glad to have him there, that serving Him in your home is joy beyond compare. But when you saw Him coming, would you meet Him at the door, with arms outstretched to welcome in your heavenly visitor?

“Or would you have to change your clothes before you let Him in, or hide some magazines and put the Bible where they’d been? Would you turn off the radio and hope He hadn’t heard, and wished you hadn’t uttered that last loud nasty word.

“Would you hide your worldly music and put some hymn books out? Could you let Jesus come right in, or would you rush about? Oh, I wonder if the Savior came to spend a day with you, would you just go on doing all the things you always do?”

In her poem, Eades asked if the listener would talk his usual “talk,” if Jesus was sitting in the living room, and she asked, “Would you find it hard each meal to say a table grace?”

Eades continued, asking “If Jesus came to your house, would you sing the songs you always sing and read the books you read, and let Him know on which things your mind and spirit feeds? Would you take Jesus with you everywhere you planned to go, or would you maybe change your plans, for just a day or so?”

Eades ended “If Jesus Came to Your House” with these thoughts: “Would you be glad to have Him meet with all your closest friends, or would you hope they’d stay away until His visit ends? Would you be glad to have Him stay forever on and on, or would you sigh with great relief when He at last was gone? It might be interesting to know the things that you would do, if Jesus came in person to spend the day with you!”

When I first heard that poem, I was nine years old and pictured Jesus walking up the driveway of a typical 1950s house. I imagined Jesus with a dark beard and wearing a light-colored robe and carrying a shepherd’s staff. I thought of his image as being right out of the “Sunday Pix” illustrations I had seen in Sunday school.

I imagined the lady at that 1950s home looking out her window and seeing Jesus headed up her driveway. I could mentally see and hear her say, “Have mercy!” Then she began scurrying and hiding magazines and books and turning the radio dial from a station playing “Your Cheating Heart” to one playing “What a Friend We Have in Jesus.”

I imagined that she cautioned her young son and daughter to be on their best behaviors. I wondered if she hoped her husband wouldn’t return from work until Jesus left, because hubby wasn’t too humble and might let slip a bad word. I felt sorry for the bedraggled woman that I imagined.

Today, as I recall (maybe in a more spiritual way) Eades’ “If Jesus Came to Your House” poem, I envision Jesus visiting the “house” of someone who has not accepted him. I imagine Jesus standing at the door of that person’s “house.” That “house” is that person’s “heart” (the place of deepest meaning, thought and emotion in each individual). I think of Jesus’ words found in Revelation 3:20: “Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup (eat) with him, and he with me.”

If you have truly accepted Jesus as Savior, he is already inside your “house,” and he wants to live in every room of your “humble abode.” Jesus said, “I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly” (John 10:10).