http://youtu.be/usZtSl8mX08 - He ain't heavy, he's my brother - Neil Diamond
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| Son Michael and Jill with two little rays of sunshine - Brooklyn and Presley! |
Have you ever heard the expression, "Friends are family you got to choose"?
I'm sure most of us have friends we consider "family". We may even feel closer to our "family friends" than
we do to our birth families. But have you ever considered that God chose your family specifically for you?
He placed you in your family for a reason.
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| Son - Richey and Amber with Jaycie and Bryce! |
If God placed me in my family, shouldn't I pay attention to what He may have for me to learn from my family members? Shouldn't I have a sense of responsibility towards my family members? I think so.
I know that not all of us were born into the best situations. Some "parents" do horrible things to their children. Why would God place a child in the care of those kind of so-called parents? Could there be a purpose? Could it be that God plans to use that child to help other children who face the same thing? Could it be we are allowed to face struggles and suffering in order to draw us closer to one another? To love each other more deeply with compassion and understanding?
We were created for love - love for and from the Lord and love for and from each other. Unconditional love. Most families have an unconditional love - maybe not an unconditonal "like". = ) But at the end of the day, I think most of us would say that we love our families.
If we understood that God in His infinite wisdom and love has placed us in our own families, maybe we would be more patient and more kind towards one another. Maybe instead of being so quick to judge and condemn or criticize our brother or sister, we'd try to harder to help them with loving kindness instead of angry words and actions.
I think of the time when my brother had a terrible motorcycle accident and how important family was during that situation. Doctors said he wouldn't survive. It was the worst time of our lives. Our family came together and surrounded my brother and his wife and children. We clung to each other like no other time I can remember. There were, of course, good friends who came, too. But Mark's family hardly ever left his side. I never felt closer to my family than during that time. I knew that no matter what, my family would be there for Mark, or for me if it had been me in the accident.
As I was doing my homework for Stepping Up with Beth Moore, this excerpt from day two of the last week of our study made me really stop to consider the importance of family connections.
from Stepping Up:
We form most friendships out of personal preferences, but we're not automatically the better for it. (Stay with me here. This lesson may bruise my feet more than yours.) Many of us have distanced ourselves from extended family because we've replaced them with people we prefer. Though some elements of the transition are justified and godly, others are selfish. Let's face it. Family is more trouble than friendship, and the fear that we might share similarities with some of our members also carries an indictment too strong to face on a regular basis.
For one thing, we can drop friends more easily when the relationship becomes inconvenient. Here's the rub and maybe the help: God chose our family even if we didn't. Even the challenges they pose can be effective motivation to seek His throne, His help, and His healing (AKA: deal with our stuff). After all, where would our prayer lives be without family? Furthermore, if we only choose to be around those who require virtually nothing hard from us, what will prompt us (force us) to change?
I love serving single women as much as married women. If you are single and living alone, however, I want to love you enough to point out the risk of avoiding needed change. People who live in close quarters with others have someone constantly trying to knock off their rough edges. People who live in community can also learn a little more readily that a fight need not be a fatality. They can learn a bit more easily how to apologize because they are invited to do it. On the other hand, someone living alone could manage most of the inconvenience and difficult personalities right out of their personal lives. He or she might rewrite Psalm 133:1 to say "How good and pleasant it is when kindred live somewhere else." Pleasant? Maybe. Good? Not necessarily. God often uses other people as the chisel to carve true integrity into our rough personalities. A chisel that never scrapes the stone is useless.
Don't misunderstand me to say you shouldn't live alone. If I were single, I'd probably want to, too. Just make sure you stay closely connected with a family-like group of people to be blessed, coaxed, irritated, and motivated enough by them to keep changing. Learning to endure hardship and inconvenience with people is critical to the process of becoming a whole person. When all is said and done, some of the people we needed most to fulfill God's plan for our personal lives will be those we wanted least. God doesn't just want us to be happy. He wants us to be useful.
Earlier, I suggested that we may not have chosen our family members, but God did.
That doesn't mean God chooses all their actions and decisions. God does not tempt people to sin. He does at times, however, permit difficult things to happen within families. To paraphrase Joseph's words to his brothers in Genesis 50:20, what Satan and others mean for evil in our lives, God wouldn't have allowed unless it could be used for good and for the delivering of lives.
New Interpreter's Bible commentary:
"The family is a crucial institution. It affects everyone, for good or ill. By its very nature, it can be the place where one experiences and learns intimacy, love and growth, or it can be the place where one experiences and learns resentment, abuse, and destructive behavior."
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Most of us have good and bad experiences in our own families. Sometimes, because of bad things that happen, we want to get away from our families as fast as we can and never look back. Satan wants to try and use God's institution of Family to hurt us and destroy us. But God says, "I wouldn't allow this situation if something good couldn't come from it."
Can we just trust God enough to know that He loves us and wants eternal good for us? If we are willing to allow God to use us, we can be stronger, more equipped to help others through similar circumstances if we just look to our heavenly Father instead of our own human wisdom.
This world is not our Home. God loves us enough to allow difficult things so that we can drawer near to Him; so that we can be a living testimony to others through our adversity. Heaven will be so worth it, whatever He allows here on earth.
Psalm 133 is about unity.
1 How wonderful and pleasant it is
when brothers live together in harmony!
2 For harmony is as precious as the anointing oil
that was poured over Aaron’s head, that ran down his beard
and onto the border of his robe.
3 Harmony is as refreshing as the dew from Mount Hermon
that falls on the mountains of Zion.
And there the Lord has pronounced his blessing,
even life everlasting.
This psalm is about the Israelites. The northern kingdom (Mount Hermon) and the southern
kingdom (Judah - Jerusalem (Zion) were not united. They were brothers - fellow descendants of Abraham yet they fought and refused to be one as God intended. But every year during festivals - when all Israelites were required to go to Jerusalem to celebrate and honor God, they all came together - they "flowed down" from the North - Mt Hermon all the way down to Zion - the south. The Israelites came together to worship God. That what God intends for us. Unity in our families. Unity in His Family.
Beth Moore stresses that family unity is important. Each member of our families can decide whether to stay and be part of the family, or they can choose to walk away. Of course there are times when it's advisable to walk away - when there is danger or evil. But if our family is just "difficult", maybe we could better serve God by being an instrument of unity. Are we willing to be the first member of our family to fight for unity? To love unconditionally? To invite God to show us the purpose behind our being placed in our particular family?
It may seem impossible in some families but if we are in a family of believers, our hearts should be so full of the Spirit of Christ that we all can come together - one in the Lord.
That's what God intended. That's what Christ prayed for in John 17.
John 17:20-23 NLT
“I am praying not only for these disciples but also for all who will ever believe in me through their message. 21 I pray that they will all be one, just as you and I are one—as you are in me, Father, and I am in you. And may they be in us so that the world will believe you sent me.
22 “I have given them the glory you gave me, so they may be one as we are one. 23 I am in them and you are in me. May they experience such perfect unity that the world will know that you sent me and that you love them as much as you love me.
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| This is just part of my family. Each member is unique and special. God placed each of us in this family for a reason. Why did God place you in your family? |
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