Of Superheroes and Sports Teams

"But the fruit the Holy Spirit produces is love, joy and peace.  It is being patient, kind and good.  It is being faithful and gentle and having control of oneself.  There is no law against things of that kind."-Galatians 5:22-23 (NIrV)

My daughter Sofie and I love going to Comicon.  We love walking around and seeing all of the people dressed in costumes as their favorite superheroes.  The last time we went we spent a full day and took a lot of pictures with people identifying with their favorite characters.  On our way home, we drove past the Arizona Diamondback stadium and watched the people filing inside dressed in the jerseys of their favorite players, carrying signs with messages to the team and even saw a few people with painted faces.  It was interesting to see two different groups dressed up and identifying with superheroes and sports heroes just a few blocks away from each other.  It made me wonder how easy it is for others to identify me as a follower of Jesus.

As I look at the passage in Galatians, it seems pretty clear that people should be able to identify followers of Jesus by the fruit of the Holy Spirit.  However, sometimes followers of Jesus are more easily identified by what we stand against than what we stand for.

When our children were younger we would talk about the things we stand for as a family.  Jennifer and I would reinforce the things we wanted to be known for as a family.  We would say things like, “as a Humphrey we want to make sure we are honest”, “as a Humphrey we want to make sure we serve others”, etc.  Even though our children are older now we still use these terms.  The other day I was having a conversation with my 18 year old son about how we strive to follow Jesus’ teachings in Matthew 18 when we have a conflict, even if it isn't easy; it's what we do as Humphreys.  I can’t take any credit for this, I learned this from another parent I admired and Jennifer and I put it into practice in our lives.

I want to encourage you to spend some time thinking about the things you and your family stand for.  As you learn how to meet, know and follow Jesus talk about some of the best ways to follow Him and ask the following questions.  What are some things that you would like to use to define your family?  What are some things you want your kids to know that you do?  I would encourage you to start by following Galatians 5:22-23 and go from there.