Cutting My Bloodlines- The Kingdom and The World

In this two-part series of notes I'm trying to get down to this issue: How do I deal with my family?

So far I have taken an honest look about how I feel about my family of "blood and marriage" and have found out some scary things about what I think and want. I want separation...bad. I also established that in coming here, I have been given a new family, the Kingdom of Heaven, my Brothers and Sisters in Christ. There now lies a tension between my two families: My family of the World and my family of the Kingdom.

I want to sweep aside my emotions and nettlesome thoughts and questions and really look at how GOD wants me to handle this thing. So I'm going to start with Scripture. I am finding out more and more that the Bible is a book of tensions, and that our faith is a balancing act.

The first thing I came across was 1 Timothy 5:3-4. I know the context isn't exactly right, because Paul is talking about taking care of widows, but he says this:

"But if a widow has children or grandchildren, these should learn first of all to put their religion into practice by caring for their family and so repaying their parents and grandparents, for this is pleasing to God."

Furthermore, Jesus says in Mark 7:9-13 that "You have a fine way of setting aside the commandments of God in order to observe your own traditions! For Moses said 'Honor your father and mother,' and 'anyone who curses his father or mother must be put to death.' But you say that if a man says to his father or mother: 'Whatever help you might have received from me is Corban' (that is, a gift devoted to God), then you no longer let him do anything for his father or mother. Thus you nullify the word of God by your tradition that you have handed down."

So what is being said in this scripture is that you should not abandon your family, but take care of them when they need help. That makes sense, and is something that I have been willing to do, though I am more the one in need than anyone else in the financial sense. However, aside from respecting your parents and family, the Bible seems to say little in the way of your proximity to them or involvement with them. There are also some other counterbalancing factors at work here:

"Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to turn 'a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, a daughter in law against her mother in law- a man's enemies will be the members of his own household.' " Matthew 10:34-36

Woah. Not your typical Christmas-ey holiday cheer explanation for Christ's birth, huh. But he keeps going-

"Anyone who loves his father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; anyone who loves his son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me; and anyone who does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me. Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will save it." Matthew 10:37-39

This is an interesting and personal verse for me. I used to love my dad more than God for a very significant amount of time, and it has only been in the last few years of my life that I have learned to love God above all others. But this verse is basically saying to me that you have to put God and his calling first and above everything else. But God will not call you to leave your family- or would he?

"Peter said to him, 'We have left everything to follow you!'

'I tell you the truth,' Jesus replied, 'No one has left home or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields for me and the gospel will fail to receive a hundred times as much in this present age (homes, brothers, sisters, mothers, children, and fields- and with them, persecutions) and in the age to come eternal life. But many who are first will be last, and the last first.' " Mark 10:28-31

"God sets the lonely in families" Psalm 68:6

I have found that those past two selections are very true. The fellowship I have received because of my faith has blessed me immensely more than even what I had before (which, I am going to be honest, never felt like much at all).

So, I suppose my question then should be, what am I being called to? Am I being called away from my family? My instincts say yes. I have been miraculously brought here to college (ask me to tell you the story some time), which is away from my family (sort of), and the Lord has clearly blessed it. I just checked my grades from this semester from my first helping of serious Geology classes, and I can see that I have been blessed there and also in my Chinese language course. I feel a desire to do missions work in China or Taiwan and while I have not yet received a direct affirmation of this goal, God has been answering my prayers to help me grasp the language, which is a sign to me it means something to him that I can speak the language. Or maybe God is allowing me to have the desires of my heart. I am not sure.

So if I am called away, I should go (and will go happily, because where I have gone in faith I have been blessed and loved). At the same time, I must give my family the respect they deserve and not abandon them when they need help. That seems fair. I think that my sensitivity regarding this issue really is that I want to be independent, I want to be a man who makes his own decisions and I want people to respect that. The next step of my life is that I leave my father and mother to become one flesh with someone else (Gen 2:24). I need to be able to do that, and I feel that escaping the gravity of my family is essential for that purpose. A lot of times I feel like a fly in a spider's web.

I think that the solution to this is that I become more patient. I think this goes back to the thing I have mentioned before: I'm looking ahead too much. Again.

So I think that I will finish this with scripture that seems particularly apt.

"I am still confident in this: I will see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. Wait for the Lord; be strong and take heart and wait for the Lord."
- Psalm 27:13-14

Peace in Christ,

-David