Understanding Relationships

We had a good discussion at church on Sunday about Heavenly Father and it got me thinking a lot about my personal relationship with him. I think that sometimes I tend to blur the relationship between Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ. It can be a confusing subject at times when you think about how the God of the Old Testament was really Jesus Christ and how other Christian faiths believe that they are one being. I am grateful for the knowledge that they are separate beings with distinct roles and yet I still feel that I struggle at times with my personal relationship with each of them separately.

It got me thinking about the important role the institution of the family is in our understanding our relationship with Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ. The relationship between a father and son is quite different from a relationship with your brother. The love that you feel for your parent is different in some ways from the love that you feel for your brother. You may share different things with your father than you do with your brother.

Thinking about it this way helps me to more clearly understand my relationship with my Father in Heaven and how to best strengthen that relationship. It also makes me appreciate so much greater the sacrifice that Jesus Christ, my brother, made for me. A father would do absolutely anything for their child, but the fact that Jesus is my brother and not my father makes his sacrifice even greater, in my opinion. I am excited to explore my relationship with them more deeply and understand those relationships separate from one another.