The Home a Garden of Grace

The Family a Garden of Grace

It'’s time for Americans to serve God by growing up, getting married, having children and settling down. Those words might be a bit jarring or considered downright dangerous to a society intoxicated with success, infatuated with romance, and indoctrinated in the dogma of feminism.

Yes, it may be difficult to maintain the BMW lifestyle, drink wine and eat cheese every evening and indulge the flesh as one might desire by following the instruction above but is life really about the “pursuit of happiness” as that phrase is normally interpreted? Certainly one can argue that life is about the pursuit of ultimate happiness in God which brings glory to God. But when most Americans speak of the pursuit of happiness I fear that they mean more vacations, more electronics, more square footage, more comfort —and less intrusions.

Perhaps that is why the front porch (if existing at all) is not very worn and the garage doors are locked tight. Many have retreated behind iron gates and security guards to live in a covenant community (covenant in the sense of what everyone agrees on paper to do or not to do on or with their property —but not in the sense of covenant community where neighbor is committed to neighbor).

The doors are locked tight and the lights dimmed low while the big screen plasma TV sends dancing streams across the room. If it's not the TV it'’s the computer, the IPOD, or some other gadget that takes one away to a world of escape from relationships. With the internet time travel is possible and virtual reality becomes the reality for far too many.

The family is where relationships are born and blossom. In no place like the Christian home is there the opportunity to develop relationships that impact eternity. The fall has severed intimacy with God and with one another. Family life is a jungle crying out for a garden that has been forsaken due to sin. Through redemption in Christ the family jungle can be domesticated with gardens filled with flowers, food, and nourishment for all. The garden now is but a reflection of the garden that was and is to come but it is a garden plowed and nurtured by grace. The home then becomes a garden where grace is tasted, pondered, and lived. Children are an integral part of garden life that are not to be shoved to the future, received as necessary intrusions to one'’s life-but to be received with thanksgiving from a good and holy God that has called us to grow up, marry, have children and settle down (in a Pilgrim sort of way).

For more help on the family visit www.nitw4ladies.blogspot.com