You Can’t Choose Your Family

For most of my life, I have been considered the “black sheep”
of my family. My sister often reminds me that she thinks I was switched at
birth, to which my mom continually assured me that was a lie. However, no
matter how different we were, they were still my family. There are things I will
do for my family that I would never do for anyone else, just because we are
family. You can’t choose your family, but you can choose to love them.

Now on the World Race, I have been blessed with 41 new
family members. Each day I have to make the conscious effort to choose their
needs over mine, to love them like my family. I have been blessed with great
teammates that make loving them easy, but I realize it is not always going to
be like this. Some days I am going to have to force myself to prefer them: to
love them and put their needs over mine.  

Throughout Scripture, Jesus constantly models this love. He
considered everyone His family, He preferred each person He met to the point of
death. Compared to the sacrifice of Jesus, giving up worldly things for the
sake of others should be easy. Not only did Jesus command us to love our
neighbors as ourselves, but also after washing the disciples’ feet, told us
that we should wash one another’s feet, something I would only do for my family.

Over the past three months, I have had to choose into
community. I have had to choose to put others before myself, because the people
I am traveling with are much more than travel partners, more than ministry
partners, or random people I was placed to go on this trip with. They are my
family in Christ.