Within the last couple of years, I have to come to realize how broken we can become as a family of believers. The Bible tells us that those who belong to the family of God are all on the same side...fighting the same fight. We are working towards a common goal, or that we should be anyways. How easily we fail this though. We spread gossip within the church and within our youth groups. We seek out those who are struggling, and just wait for them to slip and fall so that we can point out to all who will listen, what a horrible Christian they really are. Instead of looking at how far a brother or sister has come, we pick out all the faults and sins they've made along their journey, and we never let them forget them. How horribly disgusting and twisted we can be! To our own family of God! Nevermind those who have never met the Lord...
Reflecting again on my trip I was on in Jamaica, I noticed something quite beautiful near the end of the time we had in Kingston. At first I couldn't put my finger on it...I just noticed that there was something incredibly encouraging about the community and fellowship the group of 40 of us had with one another. And then I realized..there was no bickering. There was no fighting. There was no gossip, or words of negativity. The words people shared were that of encouragement, and strength. The team was always thanking one another for their work and participation on the project, and encouraging each other to keep fighting on to the end. True, near the end of the second week, when our body's were aching and we were physically and mentally drained, some people became stressed and tired, and unsure if we would ever see the end of the project. But still the smiles, the laughter, the praises to God, and the encouragement to one another remained.
As I noticed all of these things, I realized this is the family of God in it's most beautiful form. We were a family of believers, working towards a common goal of completing our project. When someone fell (and this happened in both the figurative and literal sense), there was always someone to pick them up and get them going again. Jesus was reflected in all the conversations shared amongst the team. There was no higharchy present. Yes there were those who head up the mission and gave direction, but we were all equal...equal members of the family of God.
I also noticed this reflected in the kids that we watched. They were always..and I mean always..taking care of each other. Sometimes it would be quite literally the blind leading the blind, as they took care to make sure their friends traveled to their classrooms safely, or found the destination that they were looking for. Those who were older, would look out for the younger ones. Those who had sight, or partial vision, would look out for those who could not see (although sometimes you would see it happen the other way around.) But again, what an incredibly beautiful reflection of how the family of God should look like! Working together toward a common goal...
It really doesn't take much for this to happen. It takes having the Lord present amount a community and family of believers. It takes us not putting stumbling blocks in our brother and sisters way. It takes encouraging words, and not words of revenge, hatefulness or deceit. We're not perfect and we all have sin...so we're bound to mess up more then once. But hopefully, there will be someone right there beside us to pick us up and set our feet straight again.
"Therefore, as God's chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. And over all these virtures put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity." - Col 3:12-14
Reflecting again on my trip I was on in Jamaica, I noticed something quite beautiful near the end of the time we had in Kingston. At first I couldn't put my finger on it...I just noticed that there was something incredibly encouraging about the community and fellowship the group of 40 of us had with one another. And then I realized..there was no bickering. There was no fighting. There was no gossip, or words of negativity. The words people shared were that of encouragement, and strength. The team was always thanking one another for their work and participation on the project, and encouraging each other to keep fighting on to the end. True, near the end of the second week, when our body's were aching and we were physically and mentally drained, some people became stressed and tired, and unsure if we would ever see the end of the project. But still the smiles, the laughter, the praises to God, and the encouragement to one another remained.
As I noticed all of these things, I realized this is the family of God in it's most beautiful form. We were a family of believers, working towards a common goal of completing our project. When someone fell (and this happened in both the figurative and literal sense), there was always someone to pick them up and get them going again. Jesus was reflected in all the conversations shared amongst the team. There was no higharchy present. Yes there were those who head up the mission and gave direction, but we were all equal...equal members of the family of God.
I also noticed this reflected in the kids that we watched. They were always..and I mean always..taking care of each other. Sometimes it would be quite literally the blind leading the blind, as they took care to make sure their friends traveled to their classrooms safely, or found the destination that they were looking for. Those who were older, would look out for the younger ones. Those who had sight, or partial vision, would look out for those who could not see (although sometimes you would see it happen the other way around.) But again, what an incredibly beautiful reflection of how the family of God should look like! Working together toward a common goal...
It really doesn't take much for this to happen. It takes having the Lord present amount a community and family of believers. It takes us not putting stumbling blocks in our brother and sisters way. It takes encouraging words, and not words of revenge, hatefulness or deceit. We're not perfect and we all have sin...so we're bound to mess up more then once. But hopefully, there will be someone right there beside us to pick us up and set our feet straight again.
"Therefore, as God's chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. And over all these virtures put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity." - Col 3:12-14
(For anyone who would like to see more pictures from my mission trip, click here.)
1 comment:
Cool layout man!
Post a Comment