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Scripture: Gen 9: 18-27

The passage talks about how Ham saw his father Noah (said to be righteous and blameless) naked and told his brothers.  Then his 2 brothers covered him up with a blanket.  When Noah woke up, he cursed Ham and blessed the 2 other sons who covered him.

We know Noah to be a hero of faith, but we see his imperfections here. In our home, we see this as well = our parents are not perfect, our siblings have problems, we cannot stand our relatives. We can grumble and complain that there is something wrong in our home. But instead of grumbling,  what we should do is to build our home, to make it perfect. 

In the English language, perfect meanwhile without fault, with no blemish.  
In the original language, the word used for perfect means to be complete.  The Chinese word for perfect is 完美 which denotes "completely beautiful".


How can we build a perfect home, to make "completely beautiful"?

1. We must acknowledge our imperfections 

Sometimes we see imperfections in our family but we do not know how to respond. When we see the imperfections in life, in our home. or in our country, our response range from running away, to avoidance.  We write them off because we expect them to be perfect. Is this realistic?
We have unrealistic expectations of the people,  knowing they are imperfections but holding them to a high bar. St Augustine that it is perfection to seek out our imperfections...

2. Make room for imperfections 

In the story of Noah and his sons, when his 2 sons saw their father naked, they covered him. In life, we know that not all things are good. Will we be like Ham to tell others of the wrong, or do we accept the wrong and help?

God wants to test us using our family.  We are the least patient with our family because we see each other so often. 1 Tim 5:8 calls us to care for our household, even if they do us wrong. The verse says that if we don't,  we are worse than unbelievers. 

If our family cannot depend on our members,  who can they depend on? 4 things why we are important and the best person to help:
A. We are best positioned to love our home and family
B. We are best positioned to know the needs of our home
C. It is in our best interest that our home is transformed 
D. God has entrusted the welfare of our home to us

Instead of running away, is it not better that we help build our home? If we cannot do much, the least we can do is to pray. We need to be completely humble and gentle, and to bear each other in love. Instead of seeing anger, we should see the person in faith as peaceful person, laziness as diligent, poor as rich. 

Let us who are called to be light (in our family as well as the world), commit to interceed for our imperfect family that we may honor, love and serve them to perfection.


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