Notes of Faith September 26, 2025
In a Family Way
Return to the land of your fathers and to your family, and I will be with you.
Genesis 31:3
A recent survey asked people around the world about the importance of their families. The strongest results were found in Egypt, Nigeria, Indonesia, Mexico, and Ethiopia. The United Kingdom was number seven, and the U.S. was number eight on the list. If you had been asked, you probably would have said your family is very, very important. There’s a popular saying that shows up on wall plaques: “Family is everything.”
One of the most encouraging aspects of the story of Joseph is how his family came back into harmony at the end of Genesis. Few families had been more broken by betrayal, brutality, and bitterness. Yet God gave healing in the end. This shows how much the family unit means to God. He loves your family.
Like Joseph’s family, yours isn’t perfect. There are no perfect families. We all have heartaches and challenges. But God can do what we cannot. Give all your family members to Him. Pray for each one. Keep a prayer list of your close relatives. The Lord can do more with each one than we can imagine.
Many times it takes just one member of the family to initiate the action to bring a family back together again.
Billy Graham
God gives us birth parents and sometimes God provides other people who serve as our parents through fostering, adoption, and still others who act like parents in love, concern, and provision throughout our lives. I have been blessed to have many such parental units. Now my desire is to love those in the generations behind me in the same manner, to encourage, challenge, equip, support, giving continually of the things that God has given me. My prayer is that you have these loving parents in your life, birth parents, foster parents, adoptive parents, people that just love you like their own children. This gives a small illustration of the love of God and His adopting us into His eternal family. Not the same, for the love of God is far beyond any human love, but even a glimpse of the love of God will give hope to a hurting soul.
Love God! Love others!
Pastor Dale