About Family Animosity

Recently a friend shared that she is deeply troubled by the lack of love and charity one family member routinely shows to others within the family. The current cause of this relation’s animosity is a male cousin’s choice of a spouse; precisely that the spouse is of a different ethnicity.

Now there’s several major points for concern here but we are putting the focus where my friend did, on her relative’s seeming inability to love her family the way a self-professed believer ought to – and because I too have experienced similar issues within my own family, and see it among others as well.

Why can folks, even believers, be more loving to non-relatives than to those within the family?

The saying “Charity begins at home” seem an appropriate life principle in this instance, however, since this is really not Scriptural we will go to the principles we can depend upon – the WORD of GOD.

JESUS tells us that the greatest of all commandments is that we love GOD and love our neighbor as ourselves (Mark 12:30-31)” Can we genuinely love our neighbor if we are not loving “ourselves,” considering “ourselves” as being our parents, siblings, nephews, nieces, even cousins? Should “ourselves” not be the people with whom we share common DNA, blood-types and wombs; the people with whom we shared bed covers, bath water, and bed-time stories?

Why do we grow up and disconnect so severely as to arrive at a place where we feel only resentment, hostility, and downright hatred for our relatives? Why are we involved in so many long-standing feuds, rivalries, unresolved quarrels, feuding, and childish bickering with our own flesh and blood?

The Scriptures teach us that we live and build our lives best as families.

We have Biblical evidence that GOD created families to be building blocks to human society, and as such, the family structure should be nurtured and protected.

• When Cain attacked his brother Abel and killed him, God asks Cain, "Where is Abel your brother?" Although Cain's response, "Am I my brother's keeper?," was meant to be facetious, the implication is “yes”, Cain was expected to be Abel's keeper and vice versa. Cain failed and GOD punished him by separating him from the rest of the family. (Genesis 4)
• When God saved Noah from the flood, his wife, his sons and his sons’ wives were also included in the ARK. GOD kept the family unit together to build anew. Later when Noah’s son Ham shamed his father, GOD was displeased and Ham was punished.  (Genesis 6:18).
• When God called Abraham out of his ancestral home Haran to go to a new land, He called him and his entire family, his nephew Lot, all the possessions they had accumulated and the people they had acquired in Harran. (Genesis 12:4-5).
• When the prostitute Rahab agreed to help Joshua and the Nation of Israel conquer the city of Jericho, she had one stipulation that the lives of all her family would be spared, and not just herself – “my father and mother, my brothers and sisters, and all who belong to them…” (Joshua 2:12)
• When GOD gave Moses the Ten Commandments He included instructions related to the family – the fifth commandment is “Honor your father and mother.”
• The Apostle Paul talks about what Christian homes ought to look like – that children should obey their parents but parents should also not provoke children to anger by the way they treat them. Ephesians 6:1-4 and Colossians 3:20-21.

Did JESUS love families?

We might think it’s contradictory to His teaching that JESUS encouraged His disciples and others to leave their families behind and follow Him instead. But JESUS never disregarded families; His best friends in all the Gospel narratives were the family unit of Mary, Martha and Lazarus; the latter He raised from the dead and gave the women back their only brother and protector.

 JESUS also loved children which is a clear indication that He loved families.

It is safe to infer that JESUS loved His family despite the fact that He chose His ministry over them. JESUS loved His mother. The first miracle JESUS performed in the ministry was because His mother asked Him to – He turned the water to wine at the wedding in Cana (John 2.)  One of JESUS’ last acts while He was on the cross was to ask the disciple John to look after His mother. (John 19:26-27).

It is an anomaly to say we love GOD and GOD’s people and not be able to love our natural family.

Scripture asks the question, if we don't love people we can see, how can we love God, whom we cannot see? 1 John 4:20.

The Apostle Paul gives us 10 characteristics of genuine love in 1 Corinthians 13: 

1. patient and kind;
2. not jealous or boastful or proud or rude;
3. not demanding of its own way;
4. not irritable;
5. keeps no record of being wronged;
6. rejoices whenever the truth wins out;
7. never gives up;
8. never loses faith;
9. always hopeful;
10. endures through every circumstance.

By showing this type of love within our natural family structure, we build and nurture strong and healthy support systems within that will extend outward naturally.

Then we can fulfill JESUS’ commandment to love our neighbor as ourselves – in spirit and in truth!

Whoever brings ruin on their family will inherit only wind…Proverbs 11:29

Prayer and Thanksgiving: Holy and Triune GOD, YOU are the GOD family, Father, SON and Holy Spirit who are always in one accord. As ONE, YOU created, YOU loved and YOU save. Father, teach us to live by YOUR example, to honor and love our natural families so we can obey YOUR commandment to love our spiritual families. Forgive us for claiming YOU NAME but living other than YOUR will and command as children. Father I pray for every family that is in conflict while professing to love YOU; that they will come to an end of selfishness and begin to show patience and kindness, put away jealousy and irritability, give in and not demand “rights”; that they endure, keep the faith and never give up! Cause us to love like CHRIST did on the cross, even after we sinned against His Father. Cause us to imitate HIM, the way, the truth, and the life. We acknowledge that all glory, all honor, all dominion and power belong to YOU for ever and ever. We pray all in JESUS’ NAME.

Amen!

Always by God’s Word and prayer,

Cecile