You seek a renter, one who will pay the sum you have set and keep the room and bath clean, paying on time. This is a small matter of daily life, the kind of provision we make for the flesh. The Apostle does not forbid such care, for the body needs a roof and walls, just as Timothy needed a little wine for his stomach. But watch your heart carefully, for the line between necessity and excess is thin and easily crossed.
When you light up the flame of desire for gain, when you make a furnace of covetousness, you cease to make provision for the flesh and instead fulfill its lusts. Ask yourself plainly: is this sum set only for health and honest need, or has some softer, more wanton craving crept in? For those who live a soft and relaxed life do everything not for health, but to kindle desire. You have put on Christ, so prune away all excess. Seek one thing only, to have your flesh in health, and spend your industry on the care of spiritual things.
Consider that this present life is a sleep, and its affairs are no different from dreams. The one who grows rich in a dream awakens to emptiness. Yet if you do anything disgraceful in this waking dream, the shame and the punishment are immortal. Before the day of departure, these dreams often fly away and prove useless. Let your real provision be for the house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.
Be for your own household what John was for the people, one who speaks not his own words, but brings a message from above. Let your requirement for a renter be sober and just, but let your greater examination be of your own soul’s condition. The voice from heaven is heard once or twice, but the everyday voice of fairness and hospitality must be heard continually in your home. If you use this worldly transaction to practice charity and diligence, then even this small matter becomes a step toward waking from sleep, unweighted by manifold desires.