Recently— and joyfully— I became a first time grandmother to adorable twin girls.  These, like all precious babes, declare the miracle of creation. As I’ve watched my son and daughter-in-law, I’ve been reminded anew of the gift God gives to marriages of joining with Him in the creation of life…and the joy of being a part of a family!

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God created the family, as He created everything else, for His pleasure and the glory of His Name. Families, as God created them, consist of a husband, his wife, and any children that are created from that union.

Although the role of husbands, wives, and children is enumerated in the Bible, we don’t necessarily know all of the reasons that God created families. Since it’s God’s desire that we come to know Him (John 17:3), it makes sense that He put us in families so that we could better understand Him and His heart of love for us, His family. Below are just three of what I believe are many of the reasons that God put us in families.

1) Unity:  He longs for us to experience the joy of unity that the trinity—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—have enjoyed for all eternity. John 17:23 clearly expresses God’s desire for His children to experience oneness. “I in them and You in Me, in order that they may become one and perfectly united, that the world may know and [definitely] recognize that You sent Me and that You have loved them [even] as You have loved Me.” Families are ideally created for us to experience unity. “Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and shall become united and cleave to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.” (Genesis 2:24) Every loving marriage that is blessed with the gift of children experiences the heightened unity that the shared love and responsibility for raising those children brings to the marriage. Each member of the trinity has a different but vital role to fulfill as part of the Godhead, and similarly the husband, wife, and their child(ren) each have a unique and important role in the family.

2) Creation of life: Each person of the trinity—the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit—were present and involved in the creation of the world.

“They worked in unity. Each part of creation was a sovereign act of each member of the Trinity. None of it would have been produced without the co-operation of each one. Psalm 33:6 explains this in a nutshell, “By the word of the LORD were the heavens made; and all the host of them by the breath of His mouth”….the first chapter of Genesis, when seen in the light of other Scriptures, reveal that God the Father spoke the Word (Jesus Christ is that Word) and the Holy Spirit moved. Creation was the will of God – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.” Excerpted from The Trinity in Creation by Creation Ministries International

Just think of the joy the trinity experienced in creating the world together!!! The joy must have been magnified because it was done in tandem; each person of the trinity looking upon their joint creation and sharing in what together they had brought forth.

God, in His infinite wisdom and goodness, created man and woman to be suitable helpmates with the ability and purpose of creating life together. He commanded them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it…” (Genesis 1:28)  Obvious to anyone with the most rudimentary knowledge of anatomy, that charge can be accomplished only by the union of a man and a woman.God made husbands and wives  to complement (or complete) one another, which He intended to result in their unity and He gave them the ability and joy of being able to create life together from their union—a tiny taste of the joy the Godhead experienced in creating the world!

3) Unconditional love:  Immediately upon the birth of my firstborn, I was struck with the revelation of God’s unconditional love for me in a way that I had never before experienced it.  As I looked upon my son and beheld him, I was awash with a gush of love for him that has never gone away. (Same kind of love for all subsequent children too!) I realized that although my son had done nothing at all to deserve my love, that I would give up my life for him in a nanosecond. I loved him in a way that I had never loved before… just because he was mine.He was loved by us merely because he was created by my husband and me…he was our child... and his presence in our lives enhanced our love for and unity with one another. The recognition of my love for my son that was based in no way upon his doing anything at all except being mine, helped me for the first time in my life to comprehend that God’s love for me is not conditional.  I am His special creation and He loves me just because He created me….He loves me because I am His child whom He made (Psalm 139:13).  The unconditional, sacrificial love that we experience in families gives us a greater understanding of the depth of God’s amazing love for us, His beloved children, which is the bedrock of our lives.

Have you thanked God today for the priceless gift of ‘family’?  Are you experiencing the unity in your family that God desires and created you to have? Have you praised Him for the gift of life He has given to you, and if you are a parent, the gift of being a co-creator with Him in bringing forth life? Are you walking in the reality and joy that God loves you unconditionally?

Written by Julie Van Gorp