Jeremy:
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? 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 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 so can just reinvent this kind of at will?

I think one of the things that has really been impacting me as I’ve thought about this, and there’s lots of … 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 want to just have a brief conversation to kind of pull all the way up through the layers to the biggest picture, which is if family was God’s idea, and he was designing something as an artist. Something that reflected his nature, his character. And we can glorify God through pursuing and building families. We are, as we’re doing that, we capturing, or catching a glimpse of the goodness of God. Of God’s nature, and God’s character. Even as fallen families, that we try to reflect these things as well as we can. We try to reflect fatherhood and motherhood and son-ship and daughter-hood. And we’re always going to do that in sometimes less than perfect ways of course.

But this is, it’s really a powerful thing to fall in love with the idea of family. Really, I’m talking about the design of family, the way it was originally designed is so beautiful. 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. Maybe you’re on a family vacation and the kids are finally getting along and you and your wife are really connecting. You’re like this was a good idea maybe.

I think that instead of just stopping there and just sucking that in, all that goodness, you got to turn that back and worship the Lord, and say wow, God is good. And I think if I were to 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 if we only talk about family at the functional level. So yeah, Jeff, I’m curious what that stirs up for you.

Jeff:
Yeah, I totally agree. I always like to think about any artist, even humans. It’s impossible like literally, you can try to hide it, but it’s just like it’s impossible for someone to create something and use creativity without some level of their stamp or finger print or residue on that thing, that then kind of is tells a story, that tells something that maybe you weren’t even trying to tell if that makes sense.

And I think family’s exactly that, with God’s design and God’s idea. That family is this … it’s kind of like when parents have kids. These kids are these little icons, and I mean that in the old religious sense, not like icons of celebrity. A true almost icons, like pictures, statues, living breathing representations of this outpouring and overflow of love. I think family is no matter what you do or no matter what you think, they’re different, but they’re also similar. There’s the way that … And it’s so subtle too, right? Even the way you look at kids, you’re like the way my kid even blinks or makes this noise. You just 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 overflow, this picture that he’s familial in the Trinity, and that there’s this spillover that creates icons, which is the family, and then even within that, then what creates individual image bearers that we see that is prominent enough in Wes that I don’t think we have a problem with that, that we use for all kinds of things that have created dignity and all that, which is a blessing.

Yeah, I just think that’s a really interesting way to think about it, but when you let that sink in, it becomes really weighty, beautiful, powerful, and amazing and something to chew on for today.

Jeremy:
That’s right. I hope you guys experience those glimpses that cause you to have those worship moments with the Lord.