40 Posts in 40 Days | Day 15

Formed for God's Family
Originally Written August 31, 2009
Today, I finished Mark

Point to Ponder:

• I was formed for God's family.

Question to Consider:

• How can I start treating other believers like members of my own family? What could I do today?
  

I've actually felt a bit like a family member the last few weeks at Quest. Last night, I met with the guys in my Life Group at the church and we spent the evening helping to get ready for this weekend's grand opening celebration. We actually put in about three hours' pretty hard labor cleaning up the construction debris and hauling it around to the side of the building (soon to be the front!) to the construction dumpster. By the end of the evening, we had filled it up.

And I didn't mind a bit to be there, doing it. My wife and I had worked all day Saturday rearranging the living room, and I spent Sunday after church mowing the grass. By rights, I probably could have spent the evening sitting in front of the TV and not felt the least bit guilty about it.

But the people who were at Quest working really do feel like family to me. I know I have a lot of processing left to know what that means, but they were all there working and I knew I needed to be there, too. When family members need help, you help. No questions asked.

So despite being pretty sore today, I don't regret for a second the work we did. I'm at a different spot on my own spiritual journey than the other guys in my group, and while I recognize I have a way yet to go I also know how far I've come. There's going to be somebody in the crowd this weekend in the same spot I was in this time last year. If the work we did last night does any little thing to get that person to come back and come to love Quest as much as I do, then I would load another twenty construction dumpsters by myself for the privilege of helping that to happen. After all, helping each other is what family is all about!

Verse of the Day

"His unchanging plan has always been to adopt us into his own family by bringing us to himself through Jesus Christ."
--Ephesians 1:5a