A Family Focus
What are your thoughts of family? I suspect the various answers to that question would correspond to the number of people who would choose to respond in a serious way. From the family of world citizens to the personal family each of us know, the ideas of family run forever. In this short note, my purpose is to move us toward a thoroughly practical answer. First, let us look at a few facts born out of history and personal experience.
A natural family is the fundamental biological and social structure. In that sense, we are all related. All natural family members are born because of genetic processes between a man and a woman. Families can grow and be blended in a variety of ways. No natural family is perfect but has an identifiable bent toward becoming more wholesome or a bent toward falling apart.
Families can be at war or peace. Families can be a place of security or insecurity. Families can be organized or disorganized, happy, or sad, functional, or dysfunctional, healthy, or sick, legal, or illegal, sacred, or pagan, traditional, or unique, content or malcontent, negative or positive, large or small, and economically prosperous or poverty stricken. There is no doubt or conflict about it: Families run the spectrum of forms and conditions.
To say that Christianity is family oriented is supported by Jesus when He spoke of God for the first time as Father. The most powerful piece of evidence may be when He shared with His disciples the opening to the prayer most of us recognize. “Our FATHER who art in Heaven…
The problem with Christianity being family oriented does not lie with Christ. It lies with so many of us who claim to be Christian but live daily lives in a joyless and chaotic struggle. That sick look of ours as Christians is not what other non-believing families would choose as their cure and nor should it be! Enough of that dead-end blather… Here is some hope from scripture!
1. A family that matures must have a common goal and similar interests. Like denominations or political parties, families with separate agendas work against themselves. Christians must rally and purpose around Christ for their “community”.
2. A family must have a unified focus. People, things, ideas, promotions, and projects are important; but for a Christian, the model of Jesus and becoming like Him must be the family focus.
3. A family must have a competent and balanced approach. Maintaining what is good and wholesome and building slowly but surely with a prayerful cover of God is the stability and progress of a Christian family.
4. A family must live to serve. Tripping someone up or down is one thing. Tripping over one another to help and edify is divine, and the obvious witness as real love one for another.
So, friends, if God is not our ultimate parent and Father, and His idea of family is not our purpose too, then we are only left with the ideas of man. Given that fateful option, all one would have left to say is…God help us!
Steven Bouley, Fairhaven
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