Our Family

Have you ever sat back and looked at your family. You love them, right? They are yours. That is so precious to each and every one of us. We love them despite their flaws. We each have that one cousin, or sister, brother, or even parent that makes us a little crazy! Maybe even angry at times, but we would never want any other family. They are distinctly ours.

So we go through life, loving our family and even apologizing for them from time to time. But at no point do we ever stop loving them and go find a new family, with the rare narcissistic exception to that rule. For the normal person, this is just a fact… we love our family and wouldn’t want another one. They are God’s gift.

With all of this love in us for our families, I have noticed a hard to understand trend. We are now abandoning our families and finding new ones. This seems to happen to people numerous times in their lifetime.

Why? What am I talking about?

I am referring to the church. Without genuine doctrinal reasons, we abandon our church home and family and find a new one. Why? Because we want to! We justify these actions by saying things like “I cannot stand to be in the same room worshipping with that hypocrite”, or “they were pressuring me to volunteer”, “I was tired of that persons ‘holier than thou’ attitude.”

Seems to me that we all have that one person in our family that acts in a way we do not agree with. That one person in our family that has a self-righteous attitude. That one person in our family who is always asking us to help out. But we do not abandon them and find a new family…

Make no mistake about it, in the eyes of God our father we are a family! The church is a family, and we each have our own precious church family that will be with us through eternity. And we are quick to abandon them without good reason.

Christ came and adopted us as sons and daughters; He died on the cross so that we could forever be in fellowship with Him. And so often we point the finger and spit on the cross as we angrily abandon our family.

Shame on us! Shame on us for not praying for them! Shame on us for not reaching out in love to them! Why abandon our family when God can mend all wounds, He can heal all circumstances!

I am so saddened by this trend of abandonment. In Galatians 6:2 it says “Bear one another's burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.” When people act out they are often dealing with something more then you and I can see.

But often we do not stick around to understand their burdens. Instead we allow the unseen to irritate us to the point that anger becomes sin and we abandon those who need us the most.

The next time you are sitting in your church pew, instead of judging, look past the exterior behavior and try praying for your family. The only family that will be with you through eternity.