20190404 Family – mine, yours, and ours

In the education research world, there was a meta-study conducted about a decade ago, analysing the world of gifted and talented education research.  It became a significant piece of research in the ongoing debate in this important area of education.  Its most contentious statement was this – that the younger the subject of the research was, the less reliable any measurements were.  One methodology that was commonly used would, in some contexts, yield moderated results that suggested 98% of Prep Grade aged students were gifted or talented when measured.  Which doesn’t really make any sense.  The meta-study concluded that many studies in the field did not adequately remove bias in the statistical calculations they undertook.

 

However, it does highlight an important truth about parenting.  We are naturally biased.  It is common, and so it should be, for parents to see the best in their young children, seeing their God-given gifts each and every day, celebrating them as each child develops from infancy through pre-schooler years to Primary and then Secondary school.  Parents will advocate for the talents they know their children have.  They will get intricately involved in their children’s activities, to nurture and grow these gifts.  Long may this be the case.

Pretty soon, comparisons start.  Children make them about their own circumstances – “my sister got more ice cream than me”; parents make them about the way their child is treated in each of their different social circumstances – “how come that boy got that special privilege – my son deserves a similar opportunity.”

It can be at school, in the local sports club, at church, socially.  We want the best for our children.  And sometimes we suggest that they are not being treated as well as they should be.  And it is probably fair enough – in spite of policies and established practices, organisations are run by humans, who are fallen in the eyes of God, and they make mistakes or do their jobs in an inglorious way.

Families fracture too.  We see it around us, we are deeply saddened when it happens amongst us.  Sometimes it is through discontent, sometimes it is through ill-intent; at other times, circumstances conspire beyond what we feel we can control.  And it is time for those who support the family to get around them – to help in any restoration that might be possible.

2 Corinthians 5:17-21

¹⁷ Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come. The old has gone, the new is here! ¹⁸ All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: ¹⁹ that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. ²⁰ We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God. ²¹ God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

This exhortation, by the apostle Paul, to the church in Corinth, is a BIG statement!  And it calls us to behaviours which restore Shalom – that is, behaviours which restore God’s plan for hope, order and flourishing in the lives of his people.  And it is clear, that will be brought about by people – you and me – in the way we meet our own family, other families and even those we don’t really know very well – and deal with the stuff of life they are going through.

The biblical narrative, again and again, shows God, in his love, seeking to restore Shalom.  We see this in creation, throughout redemptive history, and many of us can testify to this in our personal faith walk.  In His infinite wisdom, God chooses to use human partners, created in His image and therefore immensely valuable, for this Shalom-bringing.  We need to be prepared to answer that call today.

Let’s take a step back to the family unit we are part of.  Those we love, revere, consider to the most treasured human beings we know.  Can we be Shalom-bringers to them?  And, being emboldened by God’s promises to sustain and strengthen, let’s extend this Shalom-bringing in the direction of God’s family that surround us?  May ours be a community overflowing with humility, full of empathy, known for honest, respectful and honouring conversations.  As we minister to each other in our triumphs as well as those moments that could defeat us, my prayer is for huge amounts of grace poured on all that we do together as a community of Jesus’ people.