I have this silly quirk to my personality that gives me an aversion to feet, so over seven years ago, when Britton and I had just gotten married, I distinctly remember telling me that I would, under no circumstances, rub his feet. Oddly enough, after a few months of marriage, I continued to fall deeper in love with Britton, and I began to love even his feet. I confess now, I end up having to rub his feet at least once a day.

Then we had Micah, and my perspective continued to change. Micah was flesh of my flesh, almost another extension of myself, and his little toes were so perfectly made. Even now, with our littlest boy, Judah, I feel as though he is still part of me. I share my cereal with him; he shares his boogery face with me, and we are very much connected. One of my favorite games to play with my boys is at the end of the day to take off their socks and shoes and crawl around the living room by the fire and tickle their little toes while they squeal in laughter trying to crawl away from me. I delight in their stinky feet because they are my blood, a part of myself.

As silly as this is, I think that with family, we love things that may be a little gross to other people. We put up with moody attitudes, with temper tantrums, with even blatant selfishness in our family because we are bound together by blood.

At Lakeside, you will often hear us refer to each other as our ‘church family.’ We seek to be that for one another and I rejoice when I see this play out in our little community. When someone has a need we generally do a great job of meeting that need. Yet, when we get a whiff of someone’s stinky feet, it offends us. At times very difficult to cast that offense aside. Christ has commanded us to act differently though.

“But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment; whoever insults his brother will be liable to the council; and whoever says, ‘You fool!’ will be liable to the hell of fire. So if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember your brother has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar and go . First be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift.”

Matthew 5:22-24

We all come together because we stand forgiven. Because of this, the blood that binds Lakeside’s members together is even stronger than any genetic code, than any bloodline. What has delivered our souls oxygen is Christ, and that knits our church together with roots that run deeper than even family.

We  live life together at Connection Groups, or over a cup of coffee, and even Sunday mornings all because of the sacrifice of Christ on the cross. Christ has saved us, and out of gratefulness to Him, we should also be gracious to our brothers and sisters in Christ. We are bound by the blood of our Savior who forgave us freely despite our mishaps.  I think we all have stinky feet, don’t you? We can make much of Christ when we see His power over our offenses and as we forgive and forget.