Similarly, a family splintered by feuding will fall apart.
Mark 3:25 NLT
So much of the world is in turmoil today because of sectarian or tribal strife. Such strife wrought havoc in Europe during and after the Reformation and I saw so much trouble in my childhood and youth, just because of Protestant and Catholic dispute and contention. Now I look at the middle east and Africa and see the strife between Muslims and Jews, Muslims and Christians, and between Muslim and Muslim. All crazy hatred, and it has only one destination – destruction.
At first, I looked at this text and knew that it had some strong message in it for me. My family is scattered – my brother in Canada, my children on two sides of England, my cousins all over the place. Not all of that is due to “feuding”. In fact, probably very little of it is, but I haven’t done enough to hold it together. Because there wasn’t feuding it didn’t fall apart, but it has all drifted apart for one reason or another, and the main reason is that there has not been enough effort to hold it together. That is something that I have to start correcting.
But I am also part of a bigger family – the church family – and I really have a lot of work to do, not just on other people – mostly on myself and my role in it. I have to change my attitude in so many areas and get on with it. Where I feel myself getting upset or disagreeing, I need to deal with it the right way, and that involves changing the way I look at the situation and the way I react to and deal with it. I need to stop getting involved my way and, instead, get involved the way Christ would.