Inheritance: Listen: Prayers and Poetry

                       Inheritance

                        Such a mixed bag

                        inheritance

                        dysfunctional or “normal”

                        family history.

                        Genetics a breeze

                        or a life sentence.

                        Some stone cold broke

                        with love overflowing. Or

                        Golden riches with

                        Scrooge tightened fists.

                       

                        Timeless God calls

                        each to receive His

                        inheritance

                        none excluded

                        earthly suffering and joy

                        mixed by permanent

                        bond of love move into

                        eternity’s wholeness.

                       

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Reflection: Heirs: Listen: Prayers and Poetry

Reflection Questions

1.     What are some things you inherited from your family regardless of financial means?

2.     Has a negative bestowal been a burden or a blessing or both?

3.     We love to claim God’s promises to us, but they also often include suffering. How have you experienced this?

4.     When can blessings become burdens?

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Share: One burden that became a blessing.

Heirs: Listen: Prayers and Poetry

Reading: Romans 8:17

“And if children, then heirs, heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ—if, in fact, we suffer with him so that we may also be glorified with him.”

Like fingerprints no family is the same. Personalities both blend and repel. The dynamics of each can change from year to year, situation to situation. We grow closer during suffering or shatter into pieces. We accept or acknowledge our heritage as a responsibility or a sentence, a blessing or a burden. We hold fast or we run away.

Regardless of our background, our present, our personal gifts or our sins, God extends His open invitation. To belong to His family—for eternity.

A full adoption. Not just in name only to provide basic daily needs, but a whole relationship overflowing with joy and sorrow, feast and famine. Daily walking together in all circumstances.

We crave the good parts of His inheritance and often try to ignore or resist the losses. And our failures. Maybe even thinking we have been abandoned or left out. Again.

Instead, maybe it is His trust that includes us in His family’s tribulations. Honing our faith—understanding compassion—being prepared to live into a new heritage in a new strength and purpose. One that also embraces our birth family’s history no matter how beaten and broken, seemingly perfect and polished.

Lord, please help us to understand what it really means to live each day as an heir in your family. And discover love’s wholeness.

Psalm of Worship: Proverbs 8:16

“By me rulers rule, and nobles, all who govern rightly.”