GroshLink

Have you read the Christianity Today (CT) classic Parents and Prodigals: As my daughter leaves for college, packing up her belongings, she is still a stranger to me (came across it this morning in a CT email)?  Here's a quote:

Despite the manuals, the self-help guides, the democratizing or tyrannizing of the family, despite even our most sincere efforts at searching the Scriptures and the mind of God in prayer, we fail. Every day, children from Christian families with the best sort of spiritual and moral instruction and example run away from home, become alcoholics, get or are gotten pregnant, become addicted to drugs, wreck cars, cheat in school, break windows, commit suicide. Like cancer, it strikes indiscriminately. Being a Christian offers no immunity from family tragedy. ...

I look at my daughter, who is several inches taller than I am now. My years of sheltering her are over. I sometimes quake with gratitude that she has, beyond dreaming, turned out to be strong, intelligent, and beautiful, knowing that her being so is a matter of grace and not my doing. I am also grateful that her heart has grown large enough to shelter others, perhaps even her provoking parents, when that time comes. But most of all I look forward to that time beyond time when the both of us "will be set free from bondage to decay and obtain the glorious liberty of the children of God," together, as sisters.

Yes.  Written in 1978, the lamenting of cultural decline and the issues facing Christian families speaks with relevancy -- just chatted about much of the same material in our fellowship group and various personal conversations over the past couple of days. But it's more than the concerns about our families in the context of our current times, but the question of what does it mean to follow Christ as a family.  As Virginia Stem Owens points out, there are no New Testament real life family models to copy.  Instead we apply principles (e.g., our family talks a lot about loving God, neighbor/others, self, creation; the fruit of the Spirit; being salt/light) and share the stories of the people of God (complete Old Testament stories, even the foibles of David with Bathsheba as one addresses 'Thou Shall Not Commit Adultery') in the midst of the people of God (who continue to have their foibles even with the Holy Spirit, the written Word of God, and council of the Body of Christ). 

Father, Grant our family the grace to travel with you as we leave the breakfast table today, as classes begin in the fall, as the years unfold AND may we dance together on the streets that are golden with grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, nephews, nieces, neighbors, friends from the ends of the earth ... who have chosen to embrace and been embraced by the Way, the Truth, and the Life.  Forgive me for when I have chosen my own path over that of your Word, your Spirit, your Body.  Where there are prodigals in our family and among our relationships, grant us the grace to be those who not only wait with expectation of your transformative work but also rejoice in it.  In the Name of Your Son Jesus who brings Life, Amen.