Day 13 of Lent: "At The Same Time" {...divine tensions DO exist...}
Because I wrote, and I wholeheartedly live by, the words I wrote day before yesterday, I might be one of the more qualified persons you know, one of the safest people you know, to say this today:
Second to Christ Himself, membership in, participation with, God’s family is one of life’s top priorities.
(…prints available from a sold original titled “Hon Fleur”)
Yes, there exists a wonderfully beautiful theological truth behind the Hebraic Old Testament mandate of “a lamb for a household”.
AND it is equally true that God’s church is God’s idea, and it cannot be diminished, set aside, or even customized to fit our busy modern lives.
This is a “Both/And”. A divine tension.
“I” by myself do not constitute the bride of Christ. You, on your own, do not “the family of God” make. Your family does not “the family of God” make.
There’s a wily deception afoot in the culture that tries to make us believe that “time together as a family - just us” - must be guarded at all costs, and that “sowing into our marriage” is a large part of our Christian obligation. We are inclined to invest “on the home front” at the expense of our service to the community of saints…which has been, is, and always will be the family of God.
Some time ago, someone left a church ( I choose to refer to this like Paul did of one of his personal experiences, “whether in the body or out of the body I do not know”…”whether our church or another church, I shall not say”…) with no clear church home to which they would go. Now, they made this decision because of a perfect storm of other influences, but they weakly cited the call of Abraham (when he was Abram) to “leave his family, not knowing where he was going”.
There’s a couple of glaring issues with this line of thinking - both issues reveal a touch of understandable immaturity, but also a willful lack of Biblical, contextual understanding:
Abram was the prototype for the whole entity of the people of God in all of human history and eternity! (psssst: you and I are not. We’re just not as important. Much like we are also not Job, who was also a prototype, and aren’t you glad?)
God thought nothing of removing Abram from his family of origin, to establish the more important thing: the family of faith. It was one of God’s most foundational, and one of His earliest acts in His own plan of salvation.
So, their whole reason for leaving should have actually been their biggest, most Biblical reason to stick and stay: God is calling each of us into a far greater reality - and that reality is our participation in God’s household. My autonomous inclinations are to be set aside in favor of the overwhelming value of being a member of God’s family.
I am not saying that your family should not be a top priority.
I am saying that your family should make a local church family a top priority.
See the sweet difference? It’s in the outworking of it, fighting through the tension of it into greater freedom to pursue the heart of God together as a family, that actually makes for strong families. To be on journey to the Celestial City together, together seeking that city that has foundations whose builder and maker is God, it is that kind of togetherness which “tends towards” abundant life, in both marriage and family.
Day 11 of Lent {...tell me about your sweet family...}
I am one who deeply sees and values other families. I consider each family unique and precious. I often tell them (just by way of example):
You Smiths are amazing. You are unique expression of Christ in the earth. There is not another family in all of history like you, and there never will be. The way you guys care for each other is impressive. You love well.”
You will always find me respecting the beautiful thing that is your family. I will not seek to have a title or a place in your life that rightfully belongs to someone else. For example - I won’t secretly wish you’d call me your mom. You can love me like a mama, you can think as highly of me as you want to (and I sure hope you do!) and I may love you like a son or a daughter….but I know that you have one mama. No matter how flawed she was, is, or will be, there’s only one of her in all of time and eternity!
As leaders, rather than coveting the title of “being your spiritual dad or mom”, The Preacher and I would far rather equip you to love your own parents well. We’d far rather help you see how vitally connected honor and blessing are.
I have to tell you, under any kind of normal circumstances, unless your mother (or your dad or your sister or brother…I am just using mother as our person for the sake of this blog post)…
…unless she was a drug addict or horribly neglected you, or abandoned the family, it is possible in the Gospel for you to find ways to honor your her. It is possible to recover that relationship, see a measure of healing in it, and your life will be so much richer for it!
SHEILA ATCHLEY DESIGNS
I’m saying these things as someone who is a spiritual mother to quite a few. I get flowers and cards for Mother’s Day from children I did not physically give birth to. I get multiple texts on Mother’s Day, and I screen shot and treasure them all. But I never once tried to position myself in that way.
As you might already know, there’s a theological basis for all of this:
“Tell the whole community of Israel that on the tenth day of this month each man is to take a lamb for his family, one for each household.”
Every family has its own history that no other family has ever had, or ever will have. Every family configuration is like a fingerprint - no one can repeat it. Others can try to imitate my family (or yours), but how lame would that be, really? Even the four walls of every physical home is (or should be) like a snowflake, with no two alike. In all of time and eternity, there is no other family like yours, and that’s why God commanded a lamb for each and every household - not a lamb for a tribe, or a lamb for the nation, or a lamb for a village, or a lamb per street.
The “once for all time” sacrifice of Jesus also somehow becomes the unique sacrifice for every family’s story.
Wherever your family is broken, know that Christ can put it back together. Know that I’m with you in the waiting. And He will do His healing work with a tender respect for who you are together, where you have been, and where you are heading.
Any leader or church or group of people, even any extended family (such as an in-law) who seeks to even slightly diminish your own sense of your family, or who seeks to be a replacement for your family or for certain members of your family is, by definition, a controlling, cultish person - or as a group, they are a cult. If the person is an extended family member, put up a strong, clear boundary that says that your own family of origin will be loved and respected. If it is another person or couple or a church or a group of people, immediately place some healthy distance between you and them, or between you and that person, quickly.
Because there is a Lamb that was slain for your household! Jesus loves kindreds. Families are His jam.
Go love on yours!