Jesus is my cool older brother

Hi everyone! I'm going to reiterate my apology for not posting more here, but since I've prepended it to so many blog posts now I guess you can just assume I say it for every post hence, haha. In fact, it's been so long since I last posted that I am watching Ouran High School Host Club *again*, this time with my boyfriend, and we're enjoying it immensely.

But this is not the reason I post.

Lately, Emmanuel Church has been running a Sunday evening service called Inside Out, which is an initiative to promote discipleship amongst ourselves and to figure out ways we can reach out and help our local community. I think a trap a lot of churches fall into is that they become inward looking and selfish as a group. But God has called us to serve and to love our neighbours, and who are more our neighbours than our local community?

So from a few weeks ago, we have been discussing issues that affect people that we might be able to help in, ranging from homelessness to youth work, from caring for the sick to helping people with addictions. It's been great so far, and I'm incredibly excited for the coming weeks and for whatever I end up involved in.

In these evening meetings we're also receiving teaching on Ephesians 1 and what exactly it means to be adopted by God. Something James said tonight really resonated with me. He said that Jesus is our older brother.

See, we know that God is our father, and for some people that's a really important knowledge, especially if they have had issues one way or another with their earthly father. However for me it was this sudden realisation that this means that Jesus is my big brother that really hit home.

I've always been the oldest, family-wise. I have two younger sisters, and all my first cousins are younger than me. But when growing up, especially in my teenage years, I became captivated by the idea of a cool older brother. I really wanted one. I think I blame Michael Moscovitz from the Princess Diaries books. But seriously, I really liked the idea of someone who was going through life just a little bit ahead of me and could advise me on what to do, and was a boy because I already had two sisters.

This isn't childhood trauma. I am in no way bothered by the fact that I don't have an older brother (although there is always the interesting scenario when I've had a crush on an older guy and I'm not sure whether I fancy him or just subconsciously think he'd make a cool big brother - yeah, I'm weird like that). My dear parents, do not be concerned about me or your lack of sons. But it was just a thing that was in my mind.

So, what James said really hit home because I suddenly I realised that if I am adopted into God's family, then Jesus is my cool big brother. And I don't think I could ever have an older brother cooler than that. It's not even a life-changing revelation. Just something that made me sit up and think, "Wow."

Well, I'm sure you've had enough of the strange inner workings of my head for now. Ta ta for now, and hopefully I'll work up the oomph to blog more regularly again sometime soon...