I was thinking about my latest post as I was driving around today and feel that it needs some further development. I wondered if it left the impression that I believe that only families can be purveyors of true hospitality. I do not, even though I do value family life very highly….

In fact, perhaps somewhat controversially, I do believe that being married and having a family are the natural setting that God had in mind for humans. The word �natural� in the previous sentence is problematic, as the antonym of it, �unnatural,� then logically must describe the single life. And it would not have helped if I had used �normal.� Its antonym is �abnormal.� Having known some folk who are older and single and wonderfully whole people, I cannot call their existence �unnatural� or �abnormal.� I do, nonetheless, think it is �exceptional� to the path that God has in mind for most people. And if I find my own singleness unnatural or abnormal too, as I currently do, I trust I will not find it so if and when God makes it clear that singleness is to be my lot. I suppose I should say �gift,� as indeed it would be that too, but, aye, it really is the gift that few want I think. Like fruitcake. Oh, bad example, I love fruitcake.
However, I digress. I do believe that those who are not in families of their own are also called to be hospitable, and may be able to be hospitable in ways that families may not be able to be. Even though I do think that families are the creational norm, Christ makes it clear in the New Testament that they must not be an idol of ultimate value. Indeed, he says that disciples must place love for Him above love for families, that they may need to lose their families for his sake, and that He, indeed, may be the source of strife in families. But in response to these deprivations, caused potentially by his advent in a person�s heart and life, He promises that His disciples will be paid back, in this life, a hundred times the family love that was lost. And I presume that the vector for this blessing, no, the blessing itself, is fellowship in the church.
What I am articulating here is a really a struggle that I have in my own heart and mind. Though we have our own wheelbarrow full of issues, my family life has been very good, and sometimes this leads me to both idealize and idolize family life. To make it the absolute good. It is not. Christ is. And He is about making people holy and whole through His church. He may, indeed, bless them with the good gift of a family of their own. Or he may have them only receive and give love as brothers or sisters or mothers or fathers or sons and daughters in Christ. Whate�er my God ordains is right.