This is short and may or may not make sense. I only got about an hour’s sleep last night and am having a bit of trouble concentrating. You’ve been warned.
I spent this weekend back in Idaho with my family. Because I don’t visit that often, everyone makes at least some effort to hang out when I’m there. Makes a guy feel special. But I’m really not going to write much about my family. They’re all great. They’re all very different. I miss them when I’m not there.
What struck me this weekend wasn’t that my family is great, I knew that. What struck me was that it felt right being home. Not just good, but right on some weird metaphysical level. It felt like all the loose bits in my life just sort of fell in place. What’s more, I found myself feeling that it was my right to feel that rightness, to feel that interconnected community. Now, if I weren’t a Christian, I suppose I’d feel okay being entitled to a good family life, but I am and I don’t.
You see, I don’t really have a right to my family. They’re not mine. They’re not even theirs. They’re God’s, and His alone. They were bought at a price, bought with the blood of my Savior. Don’t get me wrong. God’s not opposed to me having a good family life, but I don’t think He’d be too happy with me going around thinking to myself that I had some special right to them.
I think a lot of my problems, and a lot of the problems of Christians in general, are caused by us forgetting that we don’t own anything. All that I have, all that I own, is a loan from God that He can collect on any moment. “Each day is a gift,” is an old cliché that you often find on the back of post cards, but it’s also very true. Each day we live, each conversation we have with a loved one, is a gift.
I spent this weekend back in Idaho with my family. Because I don’t visit that often, everyone makes at least some effort to hang out when I’m there. Makes a guy feel special. But I’m really not going to write much about my family. They’re all great. They’re all very different. I miss them when I’m not there.
What struck me this weekend wasn’t that my family is great, I knew that. What struck me was that it felt right being home. Not just good, but right on some weird metaphysical level. It felt like all the loose bits in my life just sort of fell in place. What’s more, I found myself feeling that it was my right to feel that rightness, to feel that interconnected community. Now, if I weren’t a Christian, I suppose I’d feel okay being entitled to a good family life, but I am and I don’t.
You see, I don’t really have a right to my family. They’re not mine. They’re not even theirs. They’re God’s, and His alone. They were bought at a price, bought with the blood of my Savior. Don’t get me wrong. God’s not opposed to me having a good family life, but I don’t think He’d be too happy with me going around thinking to myself that I had some special right to them.
I think a lot of my problems, and a lot of the problems of Christians in general, are caused by us forgetting that we don’t own anything. All that I have, all that I own, is a loan from God that He can collect on any moment. “Each day is a gift,” is an old cliché that you often find on the back of post cards, but it’s also very true. Each day we live, each conversation we have with a loved one, is a gift.
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