DAILY DEVOTIONAL

Family

“But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.” — Joshua 24:15

Family can be wonderful, and family can drive you absolutely crazy. Sometimes both happen in the same day. The people closest to us know us better than anybody else. They know what makes us laugh, what gets on our nerves, what we are afraid of, and where we are weak. Because of that, family can be where we feel the most loved, but it can also be where we get hurt the deepest. The Bible never says families are going to be perfect. In fact, if you read through Scripture, you will find plenty of families with arguments, jealousy, betrayal, bad decisions, and broken relationships. What God does show us is that He can work through imperfect people and imperfect families when they are willing to let Him.

One thing I think most of us are guilty of is treating strangers better than the people we live with. We will smile at somebody in the grocery store and then go home and snap at the person we love. We will thank somebody for holding a door open and forget to thank the person who has spent years standing beside us. It happens because we get comfortable. We start assuming the people closest to us already know we love them. Maybe they do, but that does not mean they do not need to hear it. Sometimes the people in your own house need the same patience, kindness, and respect that you would never hesitate to give somebody you barely know.

There are also people reading this who have real pain connected to family. Not a little disagreement. Real hurt. Maybe somebody walked away. Maybe there were words said years ago that still sting. Maybe a parent let you down. Maybe a child stopped calling. Maybe brothers or sisters who once grew up in the same house now barely speak. I am not going to tell you that forgiveness makes all of that disappear, because it does not. Forgiveness does not erase what happened, and it certainly does not mean you have to remain in a dangerous or abusive situation. But holding on to bitterness will eventually hurt you more than the person you are angry with. Sometimes forgiveness is not about saying what they did was okay. It is about deciding that what they did is not going to control the rest of your life.

Parents carry more guilt than they usually admit. Most parents can look back and find things they wish they had done differently. Maybe you worked too much. Maybe you yelled when you should have listened. Maybe you missed things you now realize mattered. There is no parent who gets every part of it right. Your children probably do not need you pretending you were perfect anyway. Sometimes one of the best things a mother or father can say is, “I was wrong about that. I am sorry.” There is strength in that. There is also something powerful about a child seeing a parent admit a mistake and try to do better. That can teach more about character than a hundred lectures ever will.

And children do not always have easy relationships with their parents either. The Bible tells us to honor our father and mother, but some people hear that verse and immediately think about a parent who made that very difficult. God knows your whole story. Honor does not mean pretending something was right when it was wrong. It does not mean allowing someone to keep hurting you. Sometimes love needs boundaries. Sometimes the healthiest thing you can do is forgive someone while still keeping enough distance to protect yourself and your family. God is not confused by complicated relationships. We might not know what to do next, but He does.

Some people have another kind of pain when it comes to family. They feel like they do not have much of one at all. Maybe your parents are gone. Maybe you lost a husband or wife. Maybe your children live far away. Maybe you never married or never had children, and there are days when that loneliness hits harder than you let anybody know. One of the beautiful things about following Christ is that family does not stop with blood. Over the years, God brings people into our lives who become family in every way that matters. A good friend can become like a brother. An older believer can become like a father or mother. A church family can show up when relatives do not. God has a way of putting people together who need one another.

If there is trouble in your family right now, you may not be able to fix everybody. You may not even be able to fix the whole situation. But you can decide what kind of person you are going to be in it. You can make the first phone call. You can say you are sorry. You can stop bringing up something from ten years ago every time there is an argument. You can listen instead of preparing your next comeback. You can tell somebody you love them before another day goes by. A lot of family problems continue because everybody is waiting for somebody else to make the first move. Sometimes somebody simply has to decide, “I am not doing this anymore. I want peace more than I want to win.”

Take a minute today and think about your family. Think about the people you are thankful for, and also the people you are struggling with. Pray for both. If somebody needs to hear from you, call them. If somebody deserves an apology, give it. If you have been blessed with a close family, do not take it for granted. Keep working at it. Keep showing up. Keep forgiving. Keep praying together when you can. At the end of our lives, we are not going to wish we had spent more time arguing over little things. We are going to remember the people we loved, the people who loved us, and the moments we had together. So while we still have those moments, let us make them count. And whatever else may be going on around us, may we be able to say what Joshua said so many years ago: “As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.”