The Normalcy Exodus

Adults are built in the hallways of our homes. Is our construction of them haphazard or well-planned? Often times, we find ourselves sucked into the vortex of busyness and our consistent attention goes out the window. This distraction deteriorates healthy development and erodes trust.

Never mind that we are already fighting the uphill battle of device addiction, the normalcy of sin, the celebration of confusion, and religious responses that condemn instead of correct. You would think these reasons would kickstart our intentionality and pursuit of family, but often times we simply remain obedient to the numb cycle: Prep for school & work > go to school & work > taxi kids to games > decompress from school & work & games > eat > sleep > repeat.

In between these events, parenting can become “Oh, whatever. Just hurry up!” or “I don’t care what you watch, just give me a minute to think!” or “What do you need NOW?!”

We begin yielding to tantrums and treating them with screens. We stop policing content. We stop looking in each other’s eyes. We stop slowing down long enough to create an opportunity for connection.

It only takes a little free time and focus for a moment of laughter to combust. But we have a million invisible things on our minds that keep us from getting to the visible. So we provide substitutes. Some we hand to them, others are found on a child’s secret journey.

If we don’t stop this insane trajectory, it will break us. Maybe not in some tragic moment, but perhaps in the cascading regret of what we didn’t do when we had the ability to do it. We are in charge, after all, aren’t we? Kids can’t choose it. They can only long for it. They can try to tell us in the their own little ways, but they cannot make the familial decision to reset the home. Only we can.

The redemption of intentional parenting is perhaps the highest calling in the land today. Whole families correct brokenness and confusion and can begin a domino effect that lasts for milennia.

We need a generational reversal and it starts with small tweaks to the culture in our homes. Let’s not allow our busyness and inconsistency to be the only consistent things we do.

Part of the purpose of the Ekklesia is to inspire onlookers, both earthly and heavenly. (Ephesians 3:10)

Sometimes we are doing good just to survive a chaotic day, much less inspire Heaven and Earth!

Getting to that point will mean a shift in perspective for God’s people. This idea that we are too flawed and filthy to accomplish anything great because we are human is perplexing because so were all the heroes of our faith, including Jesus (for 33 years).

Jesus’ sinlessness was criteria for sacrifice, yes. But, it’s the completeness of His relationship with His Father that empowered His life to produce transformation on earth. Are we not now also complete? Do we not have relationship with the Father? I sure hope so since reconciliation is what Christ died for!

So, if we are reconciled to the Father because of Christ and we are complete because of that relationship, what exactly is it that Jesus had that we don’t?

If we wait for “flawlessness”, we will never act in full confidence. If we wait for completeness, well, we’ve already got that! Plus, we have the promised gift of the Holy Spirit to boot!

We have to stop settling for less because someone told us we will never escape sin. Peter says we CAN escape sin, but not suffering. Why? Because as our lives push the envelope to the edge for the Gospel and the Bride, things will likely get tough. Tough might actually be an understatement. But that fixated pursuit generates sharing in His suffering (biblical) and shedding sin (also biblical) simultaneously.

We miss the mark because we’re human, sure. We keep on sinning, though, because we have believed its our destiny. What if the only reason we continue to sin is because we think it’s normal?

I guess it depends on how we define sin. If it’s flipping over tables in disgust and rebuking religious people publicly, then Jesus was a sinner. If its a moment of impatience or a thought you had to take captive, then we are all in major trouble. The simplest definition of sin is “to know the right thing to do and not do it”. (James 4:17)

We may not be flawless, but we are complete. And I believe Jesus’ model of completeness shows us what we can do, not what we can’t.