Family

DAILY BYTE

This week we’re considering the ways in which the presence and activity of a loving and gracious God can be seen in the ordinary, everyday circumstances and experiences of our lives. Because the great truth is that the irrepressible hope of God springs up right before our eyes, but often in surprising and unexpected ways.

Sometimes we overcomplicate things. We assume that God is a difficult concept to grasp, and that it’s hard to find God. When, in fact, all that is needed is to look in a new way.

There’s a great story that illustrates this about a group of travelers on a scientific expedition who stop at a remote rural village. They see a boy sitting in the shade of a tree with a copy of one of the Gospels in his hand. The leader of the expedition, somewhat cynically, said to the boy that he would give him an orange if he could tell them where God could be found. The boy stood up and said, “And I’ll give you two oranges if you can tell me where God is not to be found.”

And of course the boy was right. That’s the hope that is ours in what often feels like a hopeless world. God is here, with us, present and active in our midst. All that is needed is for us to open our eyes in a new way to recognise the beauty of the Lord all around us. As the poet Gerard Manley Hopkins put it so famously, “The world is charged with the grandeur of God.”

As we seek to do just that, today I’d invite you to think about the different people that are a part of your family. Think about your parents and grandparents, whether they are still alive or dead, and what they share(d) in common and the ways in which they are / were wholly unique individuals. Think about your siblings. Think about your spouse, your children and your grandchildren. Think about uncles and aunts, cousins, nephews and nieces, and any other relatives that come to mind.

If your family is anything like mine there will be an immense cross-section of different personalities, beliefs, preferences, personal circumstances, socio-economic situations, political convictions, career paths and life experience represented within your own family. And yet, through all this diversity there is something that connects you to one another, a connection that is more than just the blood coursing through your veins and the DNA in your cells. A connection that touches us at the deeper level of our souls.

Could it be that in the very experience of being part of a family, which I know can be messy and complicated and painfully conflicted at times, the grandeur of God can be seen? And in spite of the hurts and disappointments that we inflict on loved ones or are inflicted on us by them, there is nevertheless something else that can be seen in our families if we choose to see it. Something that can bring us great hope and joy, and a deep sense of gratitude that the family to which we belong is indeed ours.

Take a moment to thank God for the evidence of grace in the midst of your family, and the gift of belonging, and the hope that this speaks into your life.

PRAY AS YOU GO

Thank you gracious God for the often surprising ways in which your grace is known in the midst of the messiness of family. Help me today to cherish all my loved ones, to commit them to you in trust, and to be the kind of person who would enable family members around me to be rooted and grounded in love. Amen.

SCRIPTURE READING

Ephesians 3:14-17

For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and earth takes its name. I pray that, according to the riches of his glory, he may grant that you be strengthened in your inner being with power through his Spirit, and that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith, as you are being rooted and grounded in love.