Strengthening Our Families

""God must really be something special."" That is the conclusion I came to when I was about seven or eight. I didn't come to that conclusion after hearing a Bible story or listening to an exhilarating sermon, but while watching a bead of sweat roll off my dad's nose. Dad got off work at noon on Saturday, and was usually exhausted from a grueling week of hard physical and mental labor. The agenda for Saturday afternoons was usually rest, but this Saturday was different. It was our month to clean the church building. Mom was carefully vacuuming the pews. Dad was vigorously moping the bathrooms. I was impatiently waiting to go play baseball with the neighborhood kids. I did everything to make my impatience known, until finally in frustration I said, ""Dad, can't we just leave this for someone else? Why are we working so hard on Saturday?"" He was bent over an old galvanized bucket of water ringing out his mop when he looked up and said, ""Son, we do our best because we love God and we love His people, and this is where we meet together to worship Him. So, get that sponge and get to work."" It was my epiphany. God really was worthy of our best efforts. That day, as many days since, I was drawn nearer to my God through family relationships.

God calls us to know Him intimately through words we learn in the family. He is our ""Father."" We are His ""children."" Christ is His ""Son."" We are ""brothers"" and ""sisters."" Therefore, it is only fitting that God continues to draw us to Himself through the means of our family relationships.

The foundation of the family is a marriage made with care. Peter tells us that the way we treat our spouse affects our relationship with God (1 Peter 3:1-7). You can not have a right relationship with God and a wrong relationship with your spouse.

He tells the husband to cherish his wife as a ""joint heir of the grace of life."" God is so concerned that Christian husbands live in an understanding and loving way with their wives that He interrupts His relationship with them when they do not do so! The sighs of a wife will come between a husband's prayers and God's ears.

Peter tells the wife that the way she behaves toward her husband can make her ""very precious in the sight of God."" The beauty of her godly conduct, inner character, and spiritual courage can win the attention of a man whose ears may be dull to spiritual truth.

Peter is clearly affirming that our relationship with God is highly affected by the care, or lack of care we give our marriage. Therefore, whatever needs to be forgiven, forgive! Whatever needs to be confessed, confess! Whatever anger and bitterness is present, submerge it beneath the deeds of love. Begin to live this year as ""joint heirs of the grace of life.""

Strong families also have children that are bathed in prayer. The Bible is full of examples of godly parents who prayed for their children even before they were conceived (1 Sam. 1; Gen. 25:21-24). Once we have children we quickly learn that we have not the wisdom nor the strength to raise them alone. Prayer becomes our parental lifeline. It secures for us the wisdom we need to make the choices we are inadequate to make alone (James 1:5). It spreads the balm of comfort on hurts that are too deep for anyone else to soothe (2 Cor. 1:3). It is the temple to which we continually retreat to praise God in gratitude for the unspeakable gift of these precious lives. When our children leave home and we can no longer mend their wounds with a gentle touch, our prayers can continue to touch their deepest needs. In a sense, every Christian parent can name their child ""Samuel,"" because Samuel means ""God hears my prayer."" He will hear ours on behalf of our children.

Family Willing To Dare

A family that draws near to God will of necessity be a family that is distinctive from the world (James 4:4-8). We must not water down those things that distinguish us as God's people. Lois and Eunice taught their son the Scriptures when other Greek children were learning philosophy. Amram and Jochebed instilled in their son a faith that enabled him to refuse the passing pleasure of sin for the reproach of Christ (Heb. 11:22-27). Zacharias and Elizabeth raised a son who ate grasshoppers, lived beyond the suburbs, and wore funny clothes, yet he had the privilege of being the forerunner of Jesus. These families succeeded because they dared to reflect God's winsome distinctiveness through their families.

As we seek to draw nearer to God this year through our family relationships we have this hopeful promise to enliven our efforts, ""Draw near to God and He will draw near to you."" (Ja. 4:8). You're not alone! As you search for Him, He is running toward you.