Blood Everywhere On The Field!

TheDiscipleMd

A few years ago as I looked around the ball diamond, I spied my son catching behind the plate. My nephew was at 1st base; another son was at second base. My nephews were at shortstop, pitching, and in right centerfield. A great-nephew was in right and my two oldest son’s occupied left and left centerfield. I was anchoring down 3rd base. Blood everywhere on the field!

The Lord declared to Jacob, who became Israel, “…in thee and in thy seed shall all the families of the earth be blessed.” (Genesis 28:14)

Note that the Lord didn’t tell Jacob that the “people of the earth”, or “mankind,” would be blessed; nor did He use any other description. He said, the “families of the earth ” would be blessed because families are of Him. They are approved by Him from the beginning and patterned after life eternal. Who can deny the bond that automatically exists between a child and his parents, siblings, and extended family. We may not always like all members of our family, but somehow, more times than not, we forgive and forget because…well… “they are family.” I think that is the way the Lord intended it to be. After all, He is our Father and He has put us in families so that we might learn how to deal with the complications that come with that unit. It is the unit that is to be ours for the eternity.

Throughout the New Testament the Savior admonishes the people to ‘love one another’ and treat all as if they are family. To drive home this point, on one occasion he is informed that His mother and brothers are waiting to see him. He replies:

“…he stretched forth his hand toward his disciples, and said, Behold my mother and my brethren! For whosoever shall do the will of my Father which is in heaven, the same is my brother, and sister, and mother.” (Matt 12: 49-50)

Our softball team fell short in winning the championship that year, and I am sure if we had added some better players we would have had a better chance of bringing home the trophy. But, then we would have had to replace a family member with someone else. And that wasn’t going to happen, because well…‘we are family’ and that made our team ‘winners’ each time we took the field together! Winning a championship is always fun, but playing with ‘blood on our hands’ is heritage at its best!

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