Lately, I have been feeling an urgency to more clearly define a scriptural family life. It been burning in the back of my mind for quite a while now ever since being married, and yesterday, being at our first family fellowship gathering, brought to surface some thoughts. As we discussed communication, and how critical it is to be able to convey express our feelings, expectation, and our lives clearly, the Lord brought to mind two verses; Genesis 2:24 and Lamentation 3:22-24.
As a couple, my wife and I discussed how our family backgrounds and cultures define how we communicate with one another. I come from a pretty loud family. Arguing or not, we sound like we are yelling at each other. Whereas my wife's family is very quiet. Rarely is a loud uncontrollable laughter ever heard. But if we asked each other, if we experienced happiness and comfort in our mutual families, the answer would be 'yes'. Then we began to discuss how we want our own family to be like. Do we have to bring our old family patterns into our newly found family?
Reading Genesis 2:24, I can't help but feel God is creating something new. While some characteristics from our previous family aren't all bad, the essence is that a new family, a new organism has been created through God's blessing. That means for me that God has allowed us to begin building a new family that can keep to the good experiences and cultural characteristics of our old family, while also throwing away and repenting of unhealthy patterns that hinder my new families present and future health.
Ultimately, I feel like passivity is not the answer to building a family. Christ must be sitting on the throne guiding our every decision and every thought, and we must be responding with urgency knowing that God desires to bless us and make our family a witness to the world. Many times I feel that I wait too much and only respond to the things around us only when the world presents a problem. At the same time, I believe God desires me to be a wise and a hard-working steward of the family he has given us. This means I must think about how to lay foundations and structures in my family to not simply respond to all the world throws at us, but to be able to correctly and efficient manage my family when the storms come rolling in, and they will roll in.
The verse that comes to mind in the process of learning about building my family is the verse from Lamentations. I can't help but feel overjoyed by who our God is reading these verses. Jeremiah shares the overwhelming sadness he feels looking at the present state of Israel, God's chosen people. After years and years of sinning, God brings the nation into exile, leaving the city in waste. But Jeremiah, though faced with the judgment of his kindred, still sees God's love and mercy always new every morning.
In the same way, I feel like many times our pasts tend to define our present state whether it is individually, as a family, and as a community. But God's love and mercy for us as blood washed believers never ends and renews itself every morning as we wake up. This encourages me to rely on God to continue on building, cultivating, and leading my family the way God has envisioned. I may make mistakes; I may miscommunicate with my wife and children; I may find myself feeling hopelessly tired, but God's there providing me with everything I need to repent and continue building and defining our family.
May the Lord have mercy on our family, and continue to provide wisdom, provision, and joy in Jesus as we reform our family and continue on reforming as God convicts us and shows us His most awesome and perfect will.
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