Family of God

A successful leader who is my personal favorite once said about how he treated his employees, "Treat people like your family and they will defend you, treat them as an interchangable workwheels and they will also treat you as such."

I could not agree more. However, if my boss has a troubled relationship with his/her family, under that philosophy, then I would be in trouble.... LOL... That is why work-family balance is one of the hot topics in Organizational Development in the US. We know that the old believe to "keep personal life and professional life apart" does not really apply that well to most people.

I could not help relating the wisdom to how God treats us. Isn't that how God treats us also? We who are actually slaves because of our sins, are being treated as his family. Unlike my favorite leader who only "treat his employees as his families", God does it one step further; he makes us to be his family. Maybe we have a lot of bad experiences with other humans that it is so hard for us to trust in God. Often times, I feel like we are the ones who still choose to live as slaves.

Maybe we can be more convinced if we really think about some of the characteristics of a family and compare it to the family of God:

1. Parents. Well, we do have a Divine Father and also a Queen Mother in Mary
2. Likeness to each other. Yes, we are created in the image of God
3. Inherited genes that shaped our personality. Ever heard of the Holy Spirit and his fruits? :)
4. Many family celebrations. Hallelujah for the sacraments and feast of the Saints, especially for the Eucharist :)
5. Family inheritance. Yup, the Kingdom of Heaven where there is enough room for everyone
6. And finally: filial love. Where the family members are willing to sacrifice for each other and serve each other... well I think we are still working on this..

We need to stop to live as slaves and start believing that we are his family. We just have to realize that his love and faithfulness is always with us. We need to know that we have "inherited his genes" that is, the Holy Spirit, who will empower us to love God and each other as God has loved us first.


God bless you all,
Adrianus Indra Setiadi