-Family. Can't live with 'em, can't live without 'em, right? As Paul is praying for this assembly in Ephesus, he is thinking about families. Those things and people we are around most often we are more likely to take for granted, more likely to be wounded and scarred by whatever brokenness might manifest itself. Family. We can tend to come to the place where we believe we don't need them, but this could not be further from the truth. The most elemental societal unit, this - it is the building block of healthy functioning civilization. Individuals do not build society, families do, providing lifelong support and nurture and companionship as well as the basic framework by which we carry out the command to be fruitful and multiply. Much of the growth of the early church we see taking place as families and entire households come to Christ.
-But don't miss this - Paul is telling us that there are families in heaven. And since they are not families of angels (who neither marry nor are given in marriage), we know that these must be the souls of those who have died and gone to be with the Lord, and are still a family. Which reveals in stark relief that families are forever. Yes, Jesus in Matthew 22.30 says in response to the Sadducees' hypothetical that in Heaven people will be similar to the angels in that we too will not marry or be given in marriage, but Jesus there is not nullifying the family unit but rather merely pointing out a diminished functioning of marriage in heaven. But make no mistake, families are forever. We must not let the devaluation and breakdown of the family in our modern western society (nor any distance or dysfunction in our own family) convince us of anything to the contrary. My family is intended to be forever, and God even named it. They are part of His plan, and He never ever makes mistakes. If anything we ought to double down and renew our commitment to the family God has given us. In so much as is possible with us, praying, forgiving, reaching out, communicating, serving, loving, giving them as much Heaven as we can by the grace of God.
-But neither do we here need to diminish the value of any individual soul in the kingdom of Heaven or in the heart of God. Yes, God is the One Who named my family, but He also knows my name. Because He gave it to me. He knows who I am, every hair on my head, He knows every intimate detail, every hidden thought before I even think it, all the things about me that nobody knows and some which I don't even know myself. He made me, forming and shaping me in my mother's womb, body mind and soul, awe-inspiring and full of wonder, so full of potential to show off His breathtaking goodness. He knew the course and number of my days before there was as yet even one of them. And part of this included my family. For better or worse, they are God's gift to me, and He wants to redeem my entire family here on earth because He so longs for us to be together with Him in Heaven. Forever.
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