Day Seven | March 1 The Rock of My Family

Iam a son, a brother, an uncle, and a nephew. I am a husband and father and cousin and friend. This is my family. They are family by chance and by choice, families of blood and families of heart. And I owe a specific debt to each of them. I am who I am because of who they helped make me to be. And they, too, are who they are because of who I helped make them to be. It is a beautiful and complicated design, a sacred web, a genetic dance choreographed by Providence for each of us. And just like every gift given from the Maker’s hand, there is a reason behind it. God gave us the families He gave us on purpose – it’s just ours to figure out why. For, truly, “family” is an act of stewardship. As the poet Kahlil Gibran put it: “Your children are not your children. They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself. They come through you, but not from you. And though they are with you yet they belong not to you. You may give them your love, but not your thoughts; for they have their own thoughts. You may house their bodies, but not their souls; for their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow.”

We are stewards of our families, guardians of their minds and bodies and souls. And just like with everything else in creation, they must be built upon something – a foundation for trusting and hoping and dreaming and loving. And, in faith, we know that the only foundation strong enough to bear such important weight is Jesus.

Seen through that lens, then, our homes become our first and primary mission fields. They become sanctuaries where we experience God and explore faith together. Seen through that lens, then, with Jesus as the Rock upon which our families are built, our “family-ing” becomes di erent. Our priorities, our goals, our language become di erent. Worship no longer gets second shift. Prayer and study and service suddenly aren’t fanciful “extras” that we wish we had time for; no, they become the very buttresses that support the entire home. Seen through that lens, then, family time becomes holy time as we remember who He is … and allow it to change who we are, too.