A Story from Akasia
The sun sets over the Magaliesberg, painting the sky in hues of orange and purple, a daily masterpiece we in Akasia are privileged to behold. From my home in The Orchards, where the streets are lined with jacarandas and the air carries the scent of braai from a neighbour’s yard, I watch families return from the Wonder Park Shopping Centre, their cars weaving through the rhythm of our suburban life. Yet, beneath this tranquil surface, a profound loneliness persists. It’s a silence that echoes in spacious homes and a disconnection that thrives amidst digital crowds. It is into this modern solitude that the ancient, potent promise of Psalm 68:6 speaks with fresh force: “God sets the solitary in families”.
This is not merely a nice sentiment; it is a divine declaration of intent. But to understand its power, we must see it not as a passive blessing but as the active work of a Master Potter.
The Potter’s Hands: Intentionality, Not Accident
Imagine, if you will, a potter at his wheel. He does not randomly throw lumps of clay together. He carefully joins them, applying patient pressure, blending them into a seamless, stronger whole. This is the imagery the Holy Spirit brings to mind. Your family, my family—with its unique personalities, its friction, its beautiful mess—is not a mistake. It is His intentional artwork.
The Potter’s hands are both gentle and firm. The friction we feel—the disagreements, the misunderstandings, the rough edges of our personalities rubbing against each other—is part of the process. It is not a sign of failure, but of formation. The Potter uses this pressure to smooth our jagged selfishness, to create a vessel that can hold more of His love. He is skillfully knitting us together into a display of His creative love. The question is not whether we feel the pressure, but whether we will trust the hands that apply it.
The Philosophical Foundation: More Than a Feelin
In our age, where truth is often sacrificed on the altar of personal feeling, we must ask: is this promise merely a spiritual platitude, or is it grounded in reality? The brilliant thinkers of Jesus’ day, the Stoic and Epicurean philosophers, debated how to find the good life. Yet, when the Apostle Paul stood in Athens, he presented Jesus not just as a Saviour, but as the ultimate philosopher—the one who reveals the true nature of reality and the path to human flourishing.
A first-century Syrian philosopher, Mara bar Serapion, even compared Jesus to the great thinkers Socrates and Pythagoras, noting that after his execution, “The wise king did not die out altogether. He lives on in the new law he laid down”. And what is the cornerstone of that law? Jesus Himself declared it: “Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful” (Luke 6:36). For Jesus, the most basic truth of the universe—the ultimate reality—is that there is a God of love and mercy. Therefore, the life aligned with this reality, the truly “good life,” is one of love and mercy toward others.
This is the robust, philosophical foundation for the family of God. It is not a social club based on preference, but a spiritual family based on the very character of the Creator. God’s action of setting the solitary in families is an expression of the merciful nature that underpins all existence. To be woven into this family is to be aligned with the ultimate truth of the cosmos.
A Confrontation with Our Culture
Here, I must sound a prophetic alarm. We live in a time of what philosopher Jonathan Pennington calls the “marginalization of Scripture,” where Christianity is reduced to a private spirituality with little to say about public life and flourishing. We have bought the lie that family is primarily about personal fulfillment. When friction comes, we are tempted to abandon the wheel, to seek a smoother, more comfortable lump of clay.
But this is a rebellion that leads to a “sun-scorched land”. It is the opposite of the prosperity and joy promised to those God leads forth. The Potter’s work requires that we reject the cultural narrative of easy abandonment and embrace the biblical call to costly, committed love. True liberation is not found in freedom from commitment, but in submitting to the shaping hands of the Potter.
The Akasia Application: Finding Family in the Concrete Jungle
So, what does this look like for us, here in the northern stretches of Tshwane? It means seeing our local church, our small group, or our own household with new eyes. That single mother in Karenpark, the young graduate professional living alone in a Florauna complex, the elderly widow in Amandasig—they are not someone else’s responsibility. They are potential members of the family God is building.
Perhaps God is calling you to be the means through which He fulfils His promise. To invite a solitary soul to a Sunday braai after fellowship at the local church. To offer a word of encouragement as genuine as the one shared with me decades ago by a godly missionary in Pretoria, who taught me that we must, like Jesus, sit on the mountains of life and not let them sit on us. This is how revival spreads—not as a consuming fire that destroys, but as a candle’s flame that illuminates and warms, touching one life, one family, one community at a time.
Prayer of the Shaped Clay
Potter God, our Father,
We confess our resistance to Your hands. We often mistake Your shaping pressure for punishment and the friction of formation for failure. Grant us the grace to trust Your design. Give us patient, intentional love for the family—both biological and spiritual—You have placed us in. As you are knitting us together, help us to embrace the process. We choose today to believe that Your promise is true: You are setting the solitary in families. Use our lives, our homes, and our community here in Akasia as a testament to Your creative, unifying love. In the name of Jesus, the Great Philosopher and our Saviour, Amen.
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