Newsletter - May 2005

Dear Friends:

It’s May and our hearts and plans turn toward mothers and Mother’s Day. This is a month when we are reminded of the importance of our families and we are grateful to our parents for bringing us into this world and giving us a foundation of training upon which we could build. God places great value on our families, commissioning parents to teach their children about Him and His principles for living and telling all of us to show honor to our fathers and our mothers. So, Mother’s Day and Father’s Day are important holidays in our calendars and it is appropriate that we honor those who gave us birth and upbringing.

But, do you know that, as sons and daughters of God, we have a family that is of even greater importance than the family into which we were born? Jesus’ own teachings reordered priorities so that our marriages and families, though extremely important, take a secondary role to our primary family, the family of God. His disciples had to leave their earthly families to follow Jesus around Galilee for three years and than, after He left this earth, they continued their traveling ministries, putting God’s work ahead of their own families. Jesus was very blunt when He told those who were considering becoming His followers that pursuing relationship to Him would mean putting Him ahead of father, mother, wife, children, brothers, sisters and even (maybe especially) self (Luke 14:26).

And maybe this is why Jesus told the Sadducees that there will be no marriage in eternity: Our most important, most intimate, most fulfilling relationships will be with those who share our passion for God and for relationship with Him as our perfect and ever-loving heavenly parent.

Later when instructive letters were being written to fledgling church bodies around the Middle East, Christ followers were told to “do good to all people, especially to those who belong to the family of believers” (Galatians 6:10b, emphasis mine). It is as if Paul is saying, go out and do good things, but make sure that your first priority is doing good stuff for those who are in your spiritual family.

As Christians, we have been given a new family. We still honor our earthly parents and we take responsibility for our brothers, sisters, children, and grandchildren, but we keep it all in the order that Jesus established: our spiritual family first and our physical family second. If we are fortunate, as many of us are, there is a great amount of cross-over between those two families!

As we look at the family we became a part of when we became God’s child, what can we do to build relationships with our new siblings? What can we do to make our spiritual family a priority in our lives? I would suggest that we begin to become more and more aware of those around us who share our faith and ask some key questions, like these:

Who needs a friend?

I saw a t-shirt slogan once that said, “I am not anti-social. I’m just not real friendly.” Do you ever feel that way at church on Sunday morning? There are so many people around us who just need a friend – someone to shake their hand, to ask how they are doing, and to listen to the response. Being friendly takes some effort, but not very much. I am so often preoccupied with my own thoughts and my plans for the rest of the day that I find it convenient to leave church after the service without taking the time to talk to other people. But God is reminding me that the people who worship with me on Sunday morning are my eternal family. He wants me to love them, to reach out to them, and to treat them as an important priority. I think I should practice friendliness a lot more that I do. What about you?

Who needs support?

Botanists tell us that the huge redwood trees in California that are believed to be the tallest and largest trees in the world. Some of them are 300 feet high and over 2,500 years old. We would think that trees that big would have a tremendous root system reaching down hundreds of feet into the earth. Actually, the redwoods have very shallow root systems, but the root systems of all of the trees in the redwood forest intertwine. The roots cling tenaciously to one another and then when the storms come or the winds blow, they stand together. They are locked together at the roots; they support and protect each other and, in doing so, they survive. (1)

Let’s look around us. Who in our world needs our help? Maybe we can offer to fix a broken down car, to make a casserole, to care for children, to offer financial counsel, essentially to do something tangible to share whatever burden they are carrying. We don’t have to be deep Christians or strong Christians to reach out to others and support them when storms are raging in their lives. We simply need to be caring Christians. When we help someone else, we will find the locking together of our root systems takes place and we are both stronger. Then when the winds begin to blow in our own lives, we realize that we have the strength to survive and thrive, not because we are determined or confident, but because we are part of a root system that keeps us standing and pointed toward God.

Who needs understanding?

A mother tells of sending her young daughter on an errand to a nearby neighbor’s house. The little girl was late coming back, and her mother asked for an explanation. The child explained that a playmate of hers down the street had fallen and, in falling, had broken her doll. The child was late coming home because she had stopped to help her. The mother asked what she could possibly have able to do to help fix the broken doll. The little girl answered, “Oh, I couldn’t fix it. I just sat down and helped her cry.” (2)

Is there someone you know who needs you to cry with him or her? Sometimes doing something tangible will not fix the problem. Maybe nothing will fix the problem. Maybe the doll is permanently broken and all we can do is sit with our friends, share the pain, take them to our loving Father in prayer, and wait patiently for however long it takes for the hurt to go away. There are very few people who have the natural-born patience for this kind of caring, but we need to let the Holy Spirit grow patient love within us so we can be empathetic brothers and sisters within the family of God. We must not be afraid to get involved or afraid we won’t know what to say. Job’s friends just sat with him for seven days (think of it!) without saying anything at all. That’s true friendship. That’s real empathy. That is what someone we know may need right now.

I think both you and I need to get more involved with our spiritual family. We need to get to know those who share this relationship with us and we need to reach out to touch each other. From that will come encouragement, strength, and God’s outpouring of blessing. It’s not as hard to do as we may think. Are we willing to give it a try?

Blessings on your family moments!

Bev

(1) Leslie B. Flynn, 19 Gifs of the Spirit (Wheaton, IL: Victor Books, 1974), p. 28.

(2) Charles Allen, Perfect Peace (Old Tappan, NJ: Fleming H. Revell Co., 1979), p. 134.

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