Camping Buddies

We’ve got some dear friends. Dear enough and brave enough to go camping with us. So here we are, the four of us pretty far into our golden years, sleeping in tents, cooking over an open fire, and carrying around upon our persons that unique fragrance, eau de campfire.

It is a precious gift to have such friends, with whom you can share the mundane and frivolous as well as the hardships of life and the deep and rich things of God. And being confined to a small campsite, we find there are good number of hours in which to pursue many and varied topics. As we relax together and try to get some distance and perspective on the adventures and challenges we are each facing, we find comfort in our shared life and the knowledge that we can participate in the purposes of God for one another through caring and through prayer.

I appreciate this moment to sit back and reflect on the goodness of God to place us in relationships that enhance our relationship with Him and reveal His heart for family. Indeed, we are brothers and sisters in Christ. Siblings have a unique ability to be at once completely real and adoringly devoted. In short, they do us good.

I’m sitting in the tent, working off a Wi-Fi hot spot to produce this brief missive, and I can hear the others quite clearly as they talk and laugh a few feet away. Rather than distracting me, I find that I appreciate the backdrop as I ponder the family of God. The noise of their communion has a heavenly sound. A sweet melody, and one which I believe makes the heart of God glad. He is a good Father to smile when His children are playing well together.

“For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith—that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen.” (Ephesians 3:14-21 ESV)

Until next week, beloved, enjoy being in the family of God.