Family

I appeal to you, dear brothers and sisters, by the authority of our Lord Jesus Christ, to live in harmony with each other. Let there be no divisions in the church. Rather, be of one mind, united in thought and purpose.
1 Corinthians 1:10 NLT
https://bible.com/bible/116/1co.1.10.NLT

We had to talk last night with my grandparents about moving out of ther house they have lived in their whole lives and moving in with us. It was a hard discussion to have, and it could have gone much, much worse — if there was no unifying point of the Word of God for us all to reference and look to for guidance in this situation — if there was no still, quiet voice of the Holy Spirit guiding us and seeking to bring unity and not division.

It was me, my parents, and my grandparents, and the point that had to be made above everything is that we are one family, not three families — and that we need to be able to help each other, and love each other, and serve each other, and appreciate each other rather than being apart and divided.

It was a difficult talk, because change is hard for all of us to accept. I am going through change of employment as another company has bought out the division that I work for. And the unknown is usually something that naturally brings some level of anxiousness, apprehension, or fear. The fact that I had just recently experienced this myself, helped me greatly in relating to them and sharing that now that I’ve accepted it and have stopped fighting it, that I can now see the hope and new opportunities ahead of me.

I’m not going to lie, because a few times during the conversation it got a little heated, and a few times I had to speak some things honestly that probably stung a little bit, but all of it was spoken in love not in anger, and in the end we were all talking about wonderful things and even singing together.

And this wasn’t because we are somehow a really “good” family. No, we can be really awful to each other if we look back in our history of how we’ve treated each other from time to time. But we’r have been praying beforehand that God would go ahead of this talk and prepare both our hearts and theirs. And we prayed over our meal before heading over there that God would give us compassion, mercy, wisdom, and the right words to speak — and we prayed in the car on the way to their house — and we opened in prayer with them about unity and love and being there for each other — and we sang praise and prayed a prayer of thanks to God afterwards because God deserves all the glory for the god that will come from all of this.

https://app.soundstripe.com/songs/6259

I appeal to you, Heavely Father, I come to you boldly yet humbly by the authority given to us through our Lord Jesus Christ and by how the Word of God has taught us to pray to you, asking, seeking, even chasing your blessing that you would empower us by your Holy Spirit to live in harmony with each other. Lord, tear down divisions in the church, divisions in the body of believers. And even though you have come with a sword to set family member against each other in the flesh, let your love reign supreme and prove that Christ in us is greater than this flesh and the lies of the enemy. Help us to be of one mind, united in thought and purpose. Amen.