Ready For The Family Photo?
~ Written by Sharon MacMillan
Recently I came upon some family memorabilia. Eagerly I shared my recently-discovered treasures with my two sisters: recitals, school plays, charity sports events, school projects, etc.
There were no pictures, though, of the arguments over who would dry or wash the dishes. Nor of the complaining over what someone had done to another. We had differences in personalities that strained our relationships.
As we left home, those rifts became a habit for me that alienated my sisters from me and me from them. In my insecurities, I had mastered the art of isolating and self-protecting myself. It gave me a false sense security and comfort. This pattern of sin also developed in other relationships: people I didn’t feel an affinity for at church, people in my neighborhood who seemed different from me, and people in my own family whom I said I loved, but now realized it was only conditional.
Facing this truth was painful. As I confessed these attitudes and behaviors to my sisters, healing began. They were willing to listen to me and love me in my vulnerability. As we prayed together, oneness grew. A new humility emerged. God showed up and began to work in us. We celebrated answers to prayer. We were united in love with our Father.
I now recognized that I had distanced myself from my godly neighbor and her family because I didn’t understand our ethnic differences. I confessed my sin of isolation to her. We prayed together, feeling love for one another, free to explore a deeper relationship.
This is why Jesus Christ died. It was so we could be saved from our hiding, our alienation, our boundaries of comfort that end up dividing us and hurting others. Instead, we take on the risk of knowing God, becoming one with Him and His Son.
Right now, God’s big household of faith is a messy family with all our self-protections, isolations and misunderstandings. It wouldn’t be a good time for a family photo. But Jesus prayed for us and that prayer is certain to be answered:
“Father, I desire that they also whom You gave Me may be with Me where I am, that they may behold My glory, which You have given Me, for You loved Me before the foundation of the world. . . And I have declared to them Your name, and will declare it, that the love with which You love Me may be in them and I in them” (John 17:24-26).
There is a future photo of God’s family album revealed in Revelation 5:9-13. Our Eternal Father is there on His Throne, popping His buttons as siblings from every tribe, tongue, people and nation on the earth bow before His Son, singing praises to the Lamb slain for the sin of the world. Everyone has eyes only for Him. How long our Father and His Son have waited for this moment! God has answered the prayer of His Son so beautifully as His children begin to look like their Brother in unity and love. Let’s live with this picture at the forefront of our minds!