What Do You—or Your Family—orbit?
Planets orbit around the sun.
Electrons orbit around a nucleus.
Moons orbit around planets.
Everything REVOLVES around something.
When God gave the blueprint for His dwelling place, He made His design unmistakable: His people were to orbit His presence.
Three tribes to the North
Three tribes to the South
Three tribes to the East
Three tribes to the West
The Tabernacle sat at the center, and every tent faced inward.
Toward the presence.
Toward the glory.
Toward God at the center.
God ordered their calendar to orbit Him as well.
Their days were marked by the Sabbath. Their weeks, months, and years by feasts, fasts, and appointed times. God demanded that their schedule be oriented TOWARD THE CENTER.
What was God saying?
“I will not dwell in your margins. I only dwell in your center.”
Tragically, Christianity today faces a terrible reality. It isn’t the rejection of God. It isn’t a rebellion toward God. It is the DECENTERING of God.
Today, spiritual disciples and the House of God have been pushed into the margins. The SECULAR is now what too many orbit, while the SACRED lies in the margins.
“But I haven’t decentered Christ!” one may declare.
Did you not know that faithfulness equals orbit? What we are faithful to reflects what we orbit around.
We ensure that our children’s week revolves around School.
We ensure that our week revolves around work.
Seldom late or absent from either.
Because what we PRIORITIZE we ORBIT.
What of the Local Church? A place where righteous influence counters the secularization of school, of work, and of society? A place that is oriented TOWARD divine presence, solely aligned to CENTER the congregation toward God, His mission, and His calling.
Is it no wonder, then, that if a parent fails to bring their family into the orbit of the sacred, and instead allows their children to fall into the gravity of the secular?
Too busy. Too tired. Too much going on. Got to work. Got to sleep. Have to take another vacation. It’s just an ORBIT where Christ is too often DECENTERED and lies in the margins.
Any home that serves a God in the margins is almost always destined to produce future generations where the margins are further away and God gets more distant.
So, as a father (even when I wasn’t a pastor), I ORIENTED my family with Christ as the center. The local church served as a physical place to orient my family toward. Not because the building held mystical power, but because it was a physical place of SACRED CENTERING. It helped my children orbit around worship, the Word, righteous friendships, godly teachers, godly marriages, godly men, and godly women.
So what are you orbiting? What is your family orbiting? Is God in the margins or the center? Remember, what we do, not what we say, determines our orbit.