Family Devotional Redefined

Let's get real.

There is this ideal picture in our heads of what a family devotional looks like.

Dad (clearly the leader of the home) reads from the Bible while everyone sits around silent and wide eyed in wonder at the most clear and understandable words coming from his mouth. We smile and nod and hug and pray and family devotional = BIG SUCCESS.

Um. Then there is reality. Kids shift and talk and don't care about what you have to say because someone is looking at me or touched me. And when it's time to pray the family pet is top priority. 

There is the ambitious, what did you learn from this passage question... to which you may get an uneasy answer of, "Jesus?" or "be good???" 

I may be in a place of doubt. 

I may not be reading my Bible daily or heck, reading it to my kids.

This is what I have come to realize.

Love. Is. What. Matters.

And if I have to get all scriptural.. maybe refer to 1 Cor 13. John ... something. God is love. Above all Love is what matters... you know the drill.

We can get wordy. We can read the word. But what good are words without action? 

I can say all day God loves you, I love you. But then I yell and get mad about dumb things and lose my bearing and what good have those words produced?

We can talk Bible stories and allegories and give examples. But at the end of the day if we aren't BEING examples what does it really matter?

I don't need the pressure of having a perfect family devotional. Hell. I don't even know what that looks like. But I have an idea of what a loving family looks like... and sometimes it may not even involve reading the Bible.

Jesus said to let the children come to him. Children. Let's just take a minute.

Have you been around children? No seriously.

I have 3 of them. 2 are the same age. The baby is far more manageable. 

Children are wild. Uncontrollable. Self absorbed and obsessed. Earlier in my life I would have called this SINFUL. Now I just think it's childish. Or adutlish depending on who you know.

But downright annoying would be the best description I have now. OK, not all the time and not every day.  And if I'm being really honest what probably annoys me the most is I see so many behaviors I myself struggle with. 

For someone who wants life to be easy and a cakewalk having 3 boys has been a HUGE slap in the face. And an even more slap in my "spiritual expectations" of myself and my family! 

Throw in some faith shifting and wow. F.A.I.L.U.R.E.

Let's just say things have been stripped down to the bare if not negative minimum. 

But then I wonder, has it? 

Or does life afford us the opportunity to "DEVOTE" our lives to love? 

As my husband walks into the kitchen for the 800th time to make the boys their lunch I think, "Love is what we DO."

Adding on extra pressures from outside (not even "biblical") sources is not healthy. Nor does it really ever produce the outcome we often inwardly expect. And if there is some self injected motive involved is it really worthy?

What if family devotionals were every day moments?

The hug after arriving home from school?

Being aware. Being present. Making those damn lunches every. freakin. night.

The world just celebrated Valentine's day. And sometimes I wonder if it is not coincidental that Lent and Love are celebrated in such close proximity. Understanding from where we come (dust) but designed in the likeness of (God). And realizing that we are designed from LOVE. 

And being love to others is the fullness of our being.

We don't always get it right. But striving to do it well, to me is the best way to "devote' my life to my family. friends. God. community. WORLD.

On Valentine's night we had a dinner of delicious shrimp and burnt crab cakes (lovingly and possibly half hazardley prepared by yours truly) and as we dined we shared the things we loved about each other and even God.

In the midst of the black crust scraped off those oh so delicious crab cakes I believe we shared a family devotional. Because we shared love.

Take the pressure off. Because oft times if it doesn't go the way you expected or had planned -- love isn't the vibe being shared or felt.

Just love.

Keep making those lunches.

Devote your life to serving those around you. It is love. And God is love. 

It truly is "the way" in which you should live.