Latest / The Family Teams Podcast / Ep. 298 | Family is God's Artistic Expression

Transcript

Ep. 298 | Family is God's Artistic Expression · The Family Teams Podcast

• 0:00
  When we capture the glimpses of it, when your family's around a table and you're like, whoa, this just feels right. Hey, what's up guys? Welcome back to 5-Minute Fatherhood. Have you ever thought about family as being God's artistic expression? I think one of the things that as we think about family and we live in a culture that understandably is asking a lot of questions like, do we have to do it this way?
• 0:28
  I mean, there's a lot of brokenness in family, and maybe this is just an experiment that isn't working, or maybe people are oriented differently, and so it just makes it difficult to defend. Is there really kind of a design behind this idea, or is it all up for grabs and we can just reinvent this kind of at will? And I think one of the things that has really been impacting me as I've thought about this, and there's lots of...
• 0:54
  You can have this conversation at lots of different levels. You can have it at the functional level, like what works best for raising kids or those kinds of things. But I wanna just have a brief conversation to kind of pull back, pull all the way up through the layers to the biggest picture, which is a family was God's idea and he was designing something as an artist, something that he really, that reflected his nature, his character. And we can glorify God
• 1:22
  through pursuing and building families. And we are, as we're doing that, we're capturing or catching a glimpse of the goodness of God, of God's nature and God's character. Even as fallen families, we try to reflect these things as well as we can. We try to reflect fatherhood and motherhood and sonship and daughterhood. And we're always going to do that in, you know, in
• 1:47
  Sometimes, you know, less than perfect ways, of course. But this is, it's really a powerful thing to fall in love with the idea of family. And really, I'm talking about the design of family, the way it was originally designed. It's so beautiful.
• 2:03
  And that when we capture the glimpses of it, when your family's around a table and you're like, whoa, this just feels right. You know, maybe you're on a family vacation and, you know, the kids are, you know, finally getting along and you and your wife are really connecting. You're like, this was a good idea, maybe, you know? And I think that instead of just stopping there and just sucking that in, you know, all that goodness, you got to turn that back and worship the Lord and say, wow, God is good.
• 2:33
  And I think that that, if I were to like kind of think about family at the highest level you can possibly think about it, it really exists for the glory of God. And that may be the strongest reason why we need to experience it, heal it, defend it, participate in it, believe in it, because it was God's, as an artist, it's his expression. It's for his glory. And I think that oftentimes that can get lost.
• 3:03
  if we only talk about family at the functional level. So yeah, Jeff, I'm curious what that stirs up for you. Yeah, I totally agree. I mean, I always like to think about any artist, even humans, it's impossible, like literally, you can try to hide it, but there's just like, it's impossible for someone to create something and use creativity without some level of their stamp or kind of fingerprint or residue on that thing that then kind of is...
• 3:32
  tells a story that tells something that maybe you weren't even trying to tell, if that makes sense. Yeah. And I think family is exactly that with God's design and God's idea that family is this, it's kind of like, you know, when, when parents have kids, right? These kids are like these little like icons. And I, and I mean that in the old religious sense, not like icons of like celebrity, you know what I mean? Like, right.
• 3:51
  Like the – true like almost like icons, like pictures, statues, living, breathing kind of representations of this outpouring and overflow of love. And I think family is that – like no matter what you do or matter what you think, you know, there's – they're different –
• 4:12
  Right. But they're also like similar. There's the, oh man, the way that, and it's so subtle too, right? Even the way that like, you know, you look at kids, you're like, oh, the way that my kid even like blinks or makes this noise or this, that you just, you see it. And I think that's a really cool picture of family with God to think about that. We are like, the family is like the icon of God. And this, this overflow, this picture that he's familial in the Trinity and that there's this spillover that creates icons, which is the family. And,
• 4:41
  And then even within that, then what creates individual image bearers that we see, you know, that is prominent enough in West that I don't think we have a problem with that, right, that we use for all kinds of things that have created dignity and all that, which is a blessing. So, yeah, I just think that's a really interesting way to think about it. But, man, when you let that sink in, it becomes really weighty, beautiful, powerful and amazing and something to chew on for today.
• 5:01
  That's right. I hope you guys experience those glimpses that cause you to have, you know, those worship moments with the Lord. So if you guys want to love to have these kind of deep conversations about what is family, what is fatherhood, you can join Jeff and I over at the 5 Minute Fatherhood Facebook group.
• 5:16
  Um, we talk about, you know, kind of these high level things. We discuss articles. Uh, we, we give advice, uh, to one another through issues and talk about sort of the function of the family at different levels. So yeah, I would love for you guys to join that. Just find that on Facebook, uh, ask to join and we'd love to see you in there.