This is part 3 in a series. The first two parts, “Fusion” and “Team Sport,” were posted in Editor’s Journal on July 30 and August 11.

Seasoned adults used to tell Donna and me, when we were in our early 20s, that having our own children would surely make us less selfish (I’ll leave it to the reader to figure out why anyone could possibly have thought we needed such an experience).

So time passed, and somewhere near the beginning of the ninth month of our first pregnancy Donna laboriously rolled over in bed one night and groaned, “Oh, I’ll be so glad when this is over and things can get back to normal.”

In one of the rare moments when I was more insightful than Donna, I replied, “Normal? I think we’ve forfeited that option. I think normal is gone for good.” And so it was.

Joel, the stimulus of that conversation, is now 28. Sara is 25. And as challenging, fatiguing, impoverishing, and baffling as parenting has been, there has not been a day when we wanted to go back to being normal.

Being a family can be terribly difficult or absolutely wonderful. Often it is both—at the same time, which is why the family is such a fine metaphor for the church.

In his letter to the Ephesians, Paul did not focus in one single paragraph on the metaphor of a family, as he did with the metaphors of a marriage, a body, and a building. However, the family concept is there. Notice the family language in Ephesians:

• Adopted (1:5)
     • Inheritance (1:14, 18)
     • Household (2:19)
     • Heirs (3:6)
     • Father (3:14; 5:20)
     • Children (5:1, 8 )
     • Brothers (6:23)

In only one spot did Paul actually use the word family, but the idea is everywhere. Those who are “in Christ” are unmistakably members of the family of God. And, as with a biological family, this family-of-God experience is both difficult and wonderful. About it Paul wrote:

“For this reason I kneel before the Father, from whom his whole family in heaven and on earth derives its name. I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God” (Ephesians 3:14-19, NIV).

Wow! Is that an experience you want? It comes to us, according to Paul, as we experience life “together with all the saints.”

Paul recognized that life in this family would not always be easy. “I urge you,” he wrote, “to live a life worthy of the calling you have received. Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love. Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace” (Ephesians 4:1-3).

There is no question, this takes effort—sometimes more than a little. Several years ago, in a place far from where we live now, I had been studying these same ideas in the Bible. I had actually been thinking of writing a book (one of several I haven’t written), so I had been working hard to dig deeply and develop clear ideas.

It was at that time that a disagreement erupted within our church group. Donna and I were definitely, by strong conviction, on one side of the issue. It was obvious that convictions also ran deep on the other side. After a particularly rancorous meeting, we went home really steamed. Though I didn’t want to do it, I felt compelled to turn on my computer and consider the notes I had been making from my Bible study. I knew what I would find.

“Donna, come here,” I called to her as she sat working on some project in another room. “Read this,” I said when she came to stand beside me. I pointed to the portions of Ephesians 3 and 4 quoted above.

After two or three minutes of silence, Donna said, “Well, it’s easier in theory than in practice, isn’t it?”

That church argument was never completely resolved to everyone’s satisfaction, but God’s word did arouse our consciences and it prodded Donna and me to reconsider whether winning the argument should be our chief goal. We finally concluded—and I tell you, it was a difficult decision—that “unity of the Spirit” was more important than the argument. Looking back now, I am certain that the price of winning would have been too high.

Family life can be difficult, but as everyone who loves parents, brothers, sisters, or children knows, it is of priceless value. 

So it is, also, with God’s family.  

B.W.