The family photo that sits in our bedroom looks like it came with the frame.
As we relax in a pile of leaves on a sunny fall day, the
kids are smiling warmly in attractive clothes as they’re embraced by loving
parents who look like they don’t have a care in the world. The professional
photographer airbrushed away all undesirable signs of aging and left us with a
visual representation of familial perfection and bliss, which is what we paid
for.
However, this is far from accurate.
The majority of our time is actually not spent rolling
around in piles of leaves, but tending to poopy diapers, spilled milk, stained t-shirts,
and endless tantrums - as any parent of toddlers will testify. However, the image we want captured,
preserved, and showcased is not what is
- but what might be. We want to
live into possibility, getting rescued from reality by the prospect of the
better.
Don’t we all yearn for this?
Of course, that’s why we frame the photos of 10k finish line
crossings and high school graduations. We draw inspiration from these mountain
top images and whether we know it or not, they give us the strength we need to
make it through the valley of the everyday – through the reality that life
right now is not the perfection we so deeply desire.
These images are gifts from God. They are icons of grace that
a better world is possible – indeed, it’s on the way. And your call, and mine,
is to live into this – to be captured and convinced that goodness will win out
over evil, right trumps wrong, and that the God we’ve given our lives to is
working out all things to the good.
Relax, stay the course, cling to Jesus, help others, do the
next right thing. While heaven’s not here, it’s coming, and you’re going.
---------------------------
Reading
To Canaan’s Edge – Taylor Branch
Church Marketing 101 – Richard Reising
Understanding Boys – Clarence Moser
