Family is frustrating!
A part of every big holiday seasons like Christmas is the gathering of family. It is one of the main things people are most axious about – positively and negatively.
I have blotted out your transgressions like a cloud and your sins like mist; return to Me, for I have redeemed you.
Isaiah 44:22
With loved ones come intimacy and irritation; jockularity and judgement; love and loathing; valuation and vexation.
Often the season itself is overshadowed by the familial dynamics at play – even to the point of perhaps minimizing or avoiding the gathering altogether.
Sin affects relationships and this is felt more with those we are closest to than anyone else.
This goes all the way back to the Fall in the Garden. The loving, intimate relationship we had with God (and Adam and Eve to each other) was perfect and a blessing in every way. Nothing was difficult. Nothing was hurtful. Nothing was dysfunctional.
A sin broke our relationship with God and mars all our relationships with each other.
But God wasn’t content with that. He doesn’t want a Home or relatiojnship that is broken. So He sent Jesus to obliderate oppresion; rule in righteousness; comfort the crushed; save from sins; redeem relationships; bridge the broken; love the lost; heal the Home.
Christmas is a time to celebrate that in the Chirst Child of Jesus, our relationship with God and others are restored and we have a heavenly Home to look forward to where there will never be brokenness again.
That is something to look forward to!
Thank You, Lord!
Scriptures
- Isaiah 66:18-23
