God and Family

I posted my last entry on a Saturday night. The next morning, we had a guest speaker at church, and he gave a message from the first chapter of James. His very first point: “Mature Christians Struggle.” He didn’t use quite the same reasoning as Henry in his comment, but it was roughly the same, with the same conclusion, and the proximity of the sermon to the comment is pretty interesting. Apparently God has answered my query – all Christians, even mature ones, will always struggle. I’m not sure if that’s reassuring or sad, but it’s good to know.

Over the weekend, our church had a Men’s Retreat; hopefully the first of many. Marked by lots of Halo 3 playing (my team of Lee, Eddie and myself are the defending champions), lots of meat eating (roast beef sandwiches, sausages, home pulled pork sandwiches, and steaks), football, dodgeball, and poker.

We also had time where we set apart space to hear from God and talked in groups about what we heard. My group had a really interesting discussion. And I’ve mentioned this before. But a common sentiment among us was that in certain ways, having a family makes you more selfish, or pulls your attention somewhat from God.

I’m not sure if it’s the influence of Focus on the Family or whatever, but it seems to me that it’s commonly assumed that having a family is necessarily a good thing. And it is a good thing, but like any good thing, it can become an idol or a stumbling block if it shifts our attention from God. And in reality, that seems to be a common problem. It’s worse because it’s wrapped up in selflessness – no one can argue that prioritizing your family is a bad thing. But when we so prioritize the family that we neglect God, we’ve lost the mark.

I dunno, maybe it’s just my own experience, but I find it’s really easy to limit my interactions and time in the name of family, and it just leads to an attitude of self-centeredness, which inevitably leads to distance from God. And I don’t know why that happens. I partly blame this culture, which essentially makes gods out of children. Maybe I even blame Focus on the Family. They should change their name to Focus on God through the Family.

Anyway, I’ve come to believe more and more that with the family, as with any good thing, we have to be really aware and proactive to not let that good thing take a wrong priority in our life.