God's Family

The other day I was part of a Bible study group looking at Romans chapter 12.  The emphasis of the study was on God’s family and what it means to be brothers and sisters in Christ.  We read the Bible and we know we are all brothers and sisters in Christ.  We’re a big family. It sounds so nice.  But do we really understand what is meant by being brothers and sisters in Christ?  The teaching of the Bible, specifically the New Testament, is that those in our Christian Community, our church, are to be as close to us as real, flesh and blood, brothers and sisters.  We are to treat one another like family.  We’re to be involved in each other’s lives just as if we really were brothers and sisters.  We are to care for one another, love one another, help one another, hold one another accountable.  We give and we receive.  Whether it’s hard or easy, we are to be open, vulnerable, caring and helping to each other.  In our church we are to truly be family.

That’s the teaching, but what is the reality?  Do we really consider our church to be a family, or is it more like a club?  Are we involved in the lives of others in our church in a meaningful way?  If not, how do we get started?  What’s the first step?  Those are the questions that sprang to my mind as we talked about this passage. 

Truly being Christian family is not easy and it’s certainly not natural.  It is only because of Jesus in us that it is possible.  But the key is that it is possible.  Not only possible, it’s what Jesus wants, how He wants us to live.  It’s part of our obedience to Him.  That has to be enough incentive to make us choose to live as true, Christian family.

A Wonderful Wedding

We just had a great weekend.  An incredible weekend.  David and Katrina were married on Saturday.  It was a beautiful day, not too hot, not too cool.  The bride was beautiful in her wedding dress, and my totally unbiased opinion was that the groom was handsome in his tux. The reception was catered in a local hall, the meat cooked by Katrina's uncles.  They spent all day barbequing pork and beef!  The beef was great, the pork was the most unbelievably tender and tasty pork I have ever had in my life.  This was their wedding present to their niece, and to all of us who got to eat it.

Now our family has grown by one, our household has shrunk by one.  It is a strange feeling to see an empty bedroom and realize that David isn't just out for the day.  Yesterday I completed a survey and it felt strange to write "three" when asked how many people lived in our home. 

Life is a flowing river, ever moving, ever changing, sometimes fast sometimes slow.  We share the river with our family and friends and how incredible that we can share life with our wonderful Saviour Jesus who stands with us always.

Changing the Past

Yesterday I was playing around with a digital picture.  It was a beautiful picture taken during the winter in the mountains of British Columbia.  In the picture I was standing on my snowboard with spectacular mountain spires behind me.  For fun I changed the picture a bit.  I exchanged the face of one of my friends for mine in the picture.  My friend doesn’t snowboard, but that’s not a problem.  Now he has a beautiful picture of himself snowboarding in BC.  That’s one of the things you can do digitally and easily.  You can change a picture to be whatever you want it to be.  You can change your pictures so they look however you want them to look.  In a way, you can change the past so that it fits what you want to remember.  You can digitally make your dreams come true.

It’s so easy to play with digital images and change them.  You know, many people would really like to do that with life itself.  Change the past, re-write it, make the future different.  We often dream about what might be, what could be, what we would like our future to look like.  Sometimes we can work hard and our dreams come true.  Other times our dreams are impossible dreams.  They’re dreams we know will never come true.  That’s probably okay, as long as we don’t begin to live in our impossible dreams and become disappointed when they don’t come to pass.  I think that’s one of the reasons why many people are unhappy.  Life has not turned out they way they had dreamed it would be. They dream about what could be, might be, but it is often an impossible dream.  But they live in the dream, so they can never be happy with the present, with reality. 

When we truly live in Christ, when Jesus is our Saviour and best friend, we can be content, happy, joyful with the present, trusting Jesus that all is as He wants it to be and trusting Him to use every circumstance to change us into what He wants us to be.  I’m so glad that Jesus helps me live the joyful life He wants for me.