The Perfect Family

When my children were babies (that time long ago when I could protect them), I read homeschooling magazines, the ones with the perfect families with their ten smiling children on the covers, all looking at the camera at once and no one making faces or scowling or poking their brother. Underneath those covers the pages spoke of the joy of nurturing children and watching them peacefully blossom into responsible, confident adults who would go on to do great things. That was my dream.

Somewhere along the way I stopped reading those magazines. They just made me angry. I couldn’t get everyone to smile at once, to sit still and follow the rules, let alone to be truly peaceful and whole.

However, there is one family whose story encourages me. I’d like to nominate them for the cover of one of those magazines. This story is found in Genesis 25-49 and it is the story of Jacob. Jacob, who was renamed Israel, was the father of the Israelites, God’s chosen people. God picked this family, out of all the families on earth, to be His treasured possession. They were the family He would pour His blessing out on to show the world who He is and how great His love is for all mankind.

So… what was this family like? Well, for starters, Jacob was estranged from his birth family for years because of his own sins. Then he had more than one wife and there was tension between them. Jacob went on to show favoritism to one son, which led to jealousy among his children. His daughter was sexually assaulted and then his sons took revenge and murdered a whole town. His sons sold his favorite son, Joseph, into slavery and then lied to Jacob for years about it while watching him grieve inconsolably. One of his sons went to a prostitute and fathered a child out of wedlock, and two of his grandsons were so evil that God struck them dead. Not exactly the perfect homeschooling family.

But before all this heartache that Jacob experienced, he had heard God’s words of promise to him. “All peoples on earth will be blessed through you and your offspring. I am with you and will watch over you wherever you go…” Genesis 28:14,15. Jacob must have taken those words into his heart with joy thinking his path would be glorious. But, as the days and years unfolded, he began to experience grief after grief. Finally, at the end of his life his whole family was starving due to a famine, and his heart had been broken for many years over the believed loss of his dear son Joseph.

I can imagine Jacob must have been wondering “Where in the world are you God?” Yet before Jacob died, God peeled back the curtain and showed him that Joseph was alive! All those years while all Jacob saw was trouble, God was working behind the scenes to raise his son Joseph up to be the ruler of Egypt and to bring hope and restoration to his family and the world.

So what this says to me is that my family is just the kind of family that God has chosen to pour out his love on. I guess you can say we’re the perfect family! He has a plan of redemption that He is working out even when I cannot see it. And that plan is to bless my family and also to bless others through us. May Jacob’s story encourage you also.