FAMILY IT! — Wednesday Family Devotional — “Gentle in Our Time”

Have you ever been a part of a team or performance group?  Perhaps you played a sport like soccer or football, or maybe your thing is dance or you sang with a choir.  Teams are unique—fun, but challenging at the same time.  When you’re on a team, you usually have a special job to.  You’re the goalie defending your goal or the quarterback calling the plays.  You sing the alto part or stand on your mark for ballet.  Your have your part to play, your own goals…but as a member of a team, you also have to think about the goals of the entire group.  

I was a part of the marching band in high school.  We did some awesome routines on the field while playing cool music!  I had to learn where I was supposed to step and when to move to the next spot during the song.  That was my job.  But I also had to pay attention to my whole line, to the rest of the mellophones (yes, it’s a real instrument) to make sure we were all going in the right direction and making the full picture look like it was designed to.  We had to work together, not just do our own thing.

This week we’re moving on to chapter two in Ephesians.  Have someone read Ephesians 2:1-10.  Verse 10 has a lot of power in it!  Paul lets us know that we each have our own role that God designed us to fill.  You have a purpose, and in time, God will reveal that to each of you.  

Of course, you are also a part of a “team”—your family!  In addition to the purpose God has planned for each of your family members individually, he also has a purpose for your as a group.  He wants to use your combined power to share the gentle love of Jesus.  Maybe you already have a family role.  Do you serve at the homeless shelter together?  Or do you go shopping as a family at Christmas time to buy gifts for people in need?  Maybe you’re making it your family’s mission to build relationships with all of your neighbors and invite them to church.  

Spend some time talking together.  What makes your family special?  How has God designed and put you together as a group?  How could you use your uniqueness to share the gentleness of Jesus in our community?  Get specific.  Once you generate some ideas, choose something you will commit to do together.  Now get out a calendar and schedule it.  Let’s be gentle on purpose!

Once we start doing those “good works,” it can be easy to get pretty proud of ourselves.  When I was in marching band, if I hit all of my marks, I get kind of full of myself.  I thought I was pretty hot stuff, and sometimes that meant I was rude to others around.  I forgot that even though I did what I was supposed to, it was really the directors and the routine designer who deserved the credit.  I was only doing what they told me to do.  When we look at those verses that come before verse 10, we see the same thing.  Ephesians 2:8-9 remind us that God is responsible for everything we do.  We don’t save ourselves…or our neighbors, or our family.  God does.  He designed us, He pursued us, He called us, and He works through us.  All of us.

End your time together by thanking God for all the ways He’s worked in and through your family.  Then go and be gentle as you live out your calling together as a family!