Day 7: The gift of Family and Community

Psalm 133:1 “How good and pleasant it is when brothers dwell in unity!”

Galatians 3:26 “for in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith”

Genesis 2:18 “Then the Lord God said, ‘It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him’”

Family is a group of people that share a house or a last name. They love each other, they celebrate together, they cry together and they help each other. When that family doesn’t live in the same house or share a name but they still love and celebrate, cry and help each other we call them a community. A group of people living life together for the same purpose. When we live around people in our community who love God and we work together to serve God and love each other our family and our community start to become one.

God longs for us to love each other well. To dwell in unity means to work harder at loving each other and making peace then fighting over what you want that is different. In families and communities we learn to help each other, we learn to take care of others and we learn to let others help us. We learn that our way isn’t always the best way. We learn how to work as a team and not to tell other people what to do, we learn to share, to live and to love. It is hard but when we do this well God promises it is good.

Living in community allows us to use our strengths to serve people. Are you good at everything? Does your mom and dad do the same things or do they do different things? In a family we tend to take on different roles or different tasks? Our family is created so differently. Who takes out the trash? Who helps mom with cooking or folding laundry? We work together but without one of us things look different. If daddy isn’t home for dinner there is less focus.  If sister is tired and fussy everyone is fussy with her. If mommy is stressed out then it creates disorder. But when one person is excited about taking the trash out it becomes an adventure we all do together. When one person wants to help we become an unstoppable team! Some of us are good at math, some of us love to snuggle up and read, some of us our great painters, adventure seekers, vision builders, team builders, instigators, lovers, silly story tellers.  Because God created us individually we can take the specific talents he gives us and use them as part of a group when we live in a family and a community. We have to work together.

Family and Community are gifts from God. They are gifts that help us, love us, celebrate with us and remind us of truth. When God created Adam in the Garden of Eden he saw that we needed relationships with others. It was not good for us to be alone all of the time. Our family and our community is a way God shows us love and takes care of us!


*For information on this Advent devotional or additional days please email curry@wintersnet.com