I asked Whitney, my wife, permission to post something she wrote this week to encourage a friend she has been counseling. Hope it encourages you as it did me:
I have a friend who has experienced the recent estrangement brought about by her sibling's rebellion and rejection of the Gospel. I can only hope and pray alongside my friend that their relationship is one day mended, that her sibling is made aware of how great God is, and that that common bond can bring them together. In the fallen world we live in, it is not uncommon for us to experience the heartbreak that comes from loved ones who don't know Christ or who have abandoned us or have not been the loving and caring mothers, fathers, sisters, and brothers that they were created to be.
But this is how great God is: even in our own broken relationships God teaches us something. When Jesus is talking to his disciples about the cost of discipleship, he says, "Anyone who loves his father of mother more than me is not worthy of me; anyone who loves his son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me..." (Mat. 10: 37-38). And, then later:" Someone told him, 'Your mother and brothers are standing outside, wanting to speak to you.' He replied to him, 'Who is my mother, and who are my brothers?' Pointing to his disciples, he said, 'Here are my mother and my brothers. For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother'" (Mat. 12:46-49).
My friend's ordeal reminds her that God has sacrificed even more than she. Following Christ means that we cannot seek our salvation, our identity, or our security in any relationship other than our relationship with God through Jesus Christ! This news ought to make us rejoice and be thankful and wonder with the hymnist, "Lord, why was I a guest?"
I do not mean to be critical of the pain and grief that estrangement brings. While I may not be able to understand or grieve alongside my friend perfectly, I do know that our God can. Jesus experienced every kind of temptation and suffered imaginably greater than any suffering we ever will. Sometimes our grief feels so unbearable that we cannot even find the words to express it. And, yet, our God is sovereign and knows our troubles. Romans 8:26 says, "In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express."
I think we experience this grief so deeply because we know what it means to be estranged from God, and his family. Right before that verse encouraging us about our intercessor, Paul says, "We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies" (Romans 8:22-23). We understand not only the joy of being welcomed into the family of God as we experience justification, but also we anxiously await our arrival in God's presence as we go about our sanctification.
While we may never experience family unity or family relationships in a perfect way here on earth, Proverbs 18:24 says that "there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother:" Christ, our perfect brother who makes it possible for us to called "sons of God" (1 John 3:1). And, even we, saved though we are, are anticipating a day when Jesus will say "Here is my brother and sister!" to us when we greet Him for eternity.
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