This is a picture of my friend Lee and his family while getting ready for family portraits to be taken. Which one of us as fathers has not been here? So I asked Lee if I could use this photo to illustrate some thoughts about family and he graciously agreed.

I can remember when my children were little. Two boys and two girls, beautiful blond hair, captivating eyes, smiles that could melt the hardest heart. We were in ministry full-time, planting a brand new baby Church. It seemed like everything was perfect. People often commented on how beautiful our family was. They used the phrase ” perfect family “, and it was used to communicate a likeness to an image they had in their mind of what the perfect family would look like.

After a while you can begin to appropriate the same perception, and when things seem to be falling apart, kids get sick, get in trouble, life gets hard to handle, fighting between each and all, your perfect perception of family condemns you and beats you down.

Of course we all eventually realize that the enemy is behind all of the chaos and destruction, but often it is too late to repair the damage already done.

I guess what I mean to communicate to you in this is, perfection is an illusion in this life. Our flesh will never walk the streets of heaven. We will be changed, given new bodies like that of Christ. But for now we are housed in this corrupt flesh with all of its cravings and carnality. It is what it is until we go home to be with the Lord.

Until then we ” press toward the mark” like Paul says. We don’t lay down in defeat because we are not perfect, but trust in God to help us through our imperfection. We build relationship with Him and seek the transformation of our minds that starts with the new birth and continues until we reach our eternal home. We do mot condone or enable bad behavior with family but we love one another trough our faults and imperfections, Just as God does with us.

Love and forgiveness are very powerful things, that can transform another’s life.

David consistently sought out God’s unfailing love and forgiveness for his imperfections and short comings, and God called him a man after His own heart. Sin alone is not what destroys us, Jesus took all of that to the cross, but it is our failure to take that sin to God in repentance, seeking forgiveness and restoration that leaves us in our condemnation.

Some may look at the photo above and see imperfection, I look at this photo and see reality, and I praise God He has given us what we need to create something beautiful, like Lee’s family, in spite of our imperfections.

Be a man after God’s own heart.

Be a man like David.