Much is said in the Bible about Family. God tells children to honor their parents and husbands are to love their wives and take care of the needs of the family, both material and spiritual. Wives are to love and respect their husbands and love their children. Most families in this world fail to live up to these standards. Families are broken. People are hurting because of things that happened within the family.

In spite of all that has gone wrong, family is still important. The ideal is a picture of God’s relationship with us. That’s why Jesus called him Father and told us we should also. For those whose family situation is broken beyond the hope of healing, God wants to show himself as their Father who loves them perfectly, and who knows how to take care of them.

Jesus showed us how we should respond to the Father in the parable of the Prodigal Son. We should realize that if we are living apart from that family relationship with him, we are wasting our lives in empty pursuits. We are missing what is best, replacing it with what in the end will seem like food unfit even for pigs. The Father welcomed  the son home with open arms and had a party in his honor. That is the heart of God for us as well.