Family Helps

Many of us found that the daily routines we had established in the spring, went out the window on Memorial day. Now that school is back in full swing, it may be wise to step back and assess your daily routines. In our family, we have found that developing morning and evening routines helps us be able to get up at a decent time without stressing over whether or not we have time to prepare for the day.

Two of the questions that I’m often asked is how a spiritual leader can keep his family a priority in the ministry and how we can encourage our children so they don’t feel resentful toward the ministry.

There’s no question about it: the home is under attack today. And I’m not just talking about subtle attacks that cautiously undermine biblical values. I’m talking about a full on, vicious, satanic attack that is shaking the very definition of the family itself.

If you are building a home, you don’t want to trust your own intuition. You need God’s wisdom and God’s help.

I’ve read 1 Peter 3:7 hundreds—if not thousands—of times. This verse is rich with marital counsel to husbands.

The eyes are said to be the most sensitive parts of our body. Eyesight is a precious gift from God! If our eyes are most sensitive to physical light and pain, how much more are they sensitive to what enters into the heart. Proverbs 7:2 says, “Keep my commandments, and live; and my law as the apple of thine eye.”

There are so many areas for parents to invest themselves in raising their children. And there are many resources available in learning to be godly parents. But there is one resource that is more powerful than any book, seminar, or method.

Attitudes regarding money are learned, and children learn theirs primarily from their parents. You’ve seen it: Families that charge themselves into deep debt often see new debt perpetuated in the next generation. Likewise, families that are inconsistent in giving often see similar inconsistencies in the next generation.

We are all aware of our need to communicate—it starts early in life. In order for a baby to communicate that he needs something, he will cry. It is amazing how effective a baby can be at communicating without words. After a while, we learn our first word, and then it isn’t long before we are talking a blue-streak.

No marriage is perfect. I think pretty much everybody gets that. How can it be? After all, it is the union of two imperfect people. Although we might do so reluctantly, I think each of us who are married can admit that we’ve been the bad marriage partner at some point or another.

“For we are labourers together with God” –1 Corinthians 3:9

Somebody will rear your children. In fact, a number of somebodys will. One of the chief responsibilities of a parent is to recognize his God-given responsibility both to be that primary somebody and to screen who those other somebodys will be.

One of the greatest responsibilities of being a parent is to instill the proper values and convictions in your children. When we give our children a strong foundation of biblical values and convictions, we are teaching them that life is about more than making ourselves happy and pleasing ourselves. Rather we are to live for God and please Him.

Teenagers are a delightful challenge—even to themselves! The teenage years can be full of fun and yet puzzling and frustrating all at the same time. There’s so much growth, change, and transition taking place in this move from childhood to adulthood.

One of my dear friends once told me of a time when she and her husband were first married. During their first few years of marriage, their home was a simple, small apartment with hardly any furnishings. She went on to tell me that they were just as happy then as they are now, many years later, living in a large house on five acres of land.

“The little things become the BIG things.” Have you ever heard that quote? A few years ago, I emailed some of my friends and asked them what they remembered about their childhood. I have reproduced many of their answers below, and I hope that you notice the things they remembered really were the little things.

Next to my salvation and my relationship with God, nothing is more important to me than my relationship with my family. I am very blessed to have grown up in a healthy, spiritual family. My parents were saved before my birth, and early in my infancy they started attending a Bible preaching church. That Bible preaching and teaching helped them in their marriage and certainly helped them raise their children.

One of the greatest dangers to any relationship—especially marriage—is fantastical expectations. Somewhere along the line, we buy into lies from the enemy of what marriage should be and what our spouses should give us. The predictable result of these unreasonable expectations is disappointment.

If you are a father with children at home, you are a blessed man. It seems just yesterday that I snapped the picture above. In reality, it was twenty years ago. When it comes to parenting, time flies. And I don’t regret a second of that fleeting time that I invested in my children.

I don’t remember that I thought too much about the word legacy—not in a personal sense, anyway—until my first grandchild was born. As parents, we’re so involved in the daily aspects of guiding our children, and we’re so committed to being there for them every step of the way, that we don’t think as much in terms of what legacy we leave for them after we are gone.