Fridays Are For Family – Learning What They Live

06 May Fridays Are For Family – Learning What They Live

After about a year off, I’ve decided to once again start sharing some scriptural, spiritual, and I pray helpful advice on how to build into your life as a family.  The reason for this is because I believe that the family is the most important institution on the face of the planet.  If you’ll read the beginning pages of scripture, you’ll find that marriage and the family were created even before the church.  So, knowing how much Christ loves the church, that ought to give us just a little glimpse into how important your family is in the eyes of God.

One of the things that we do here at the Whitt House is we set aside friday as our “Family Day.” If you follow me on Twitter or we’re friends on Facebook, you’ve no doubt seen my tweets or status updates on Friday morning drawing attention to the fact that “Fridays are Family Days at the Whitt House” and maybe a little bit of information on what we have planned for that particular day.

Now, Friday may not be the day that your family sets aside to just be together as a family. Your children may be at school or you may be at work, so Friday may not work for your family.  That’s OK. But you should have at least one day a week where you just spend time with each other.

So, with that in mind, I want to begin to give you some very simple and most likely short, posts here on Fridays that I pray will help you in the building and the strengthening of your family.  Sometimes I’ll deal with the relationship between husbands and wives. Other times I’ll try to give some insight or help on the relationship between parents and children.  I’ll often give personal examples from our family so that you can see that just like you and your family, we don’t have all the answers and often have to learn from our mistakes.  (My mom calls these “bought lessons.”) Most of all, I want you to know that our Heavenly Father loves us, and He wants us to have a great, godly, growing family that brings Him glory and people to Jesus.

I’m looking forward to our time together on Fridays!

“Train up a child in the way he should go, And when he is old he will not depart from it.” Prov. 22:6

Most of us have read this verse, studied this verse, some may have even memorized it.  Proverbs 22:6 is a powerful principle – a promise even – from the Word of God.  So, how do you “train up a child”? Well, there are many ways that this training can, and should take place in a Christian home.  There is the formal teaching and instruction that comes from a family’s devotional time. There is the coporate training and instruction that comes at church.  Then there is the informal training that comes as our children are with us and around us at home.  That’s what I want to deal with for a minute this morning.

You see, children don’t just learn from what you teach, they learn from what they live.  Experience and observation are very powerful teachers.  “Do what I say, not as I do” never works.  Your children are going to do what you do and they are going to become what they see in your life.

Let me share with you some very interesting, and really convicting ways, this works out in the life of our children.

* If children live with criticism, they learn to condemn.

* If children live with hostility, they learn to fight.

* If children live with ridicule, they learn to be shy.

* If children live with shame, they learn to be guilty.

* If children live with encouragement, they learn confidence.

* If children live with tolerance, they learn to be patient.

* If children live with praise, they learn to appreciate.

* If children live with acceptance, they learn to love.

* If children live with approval, they learn to like themselves.

* If children live with honesty, they learn truthfulness.

* If children live with security, they learn to have faith in others and themselves.

* If children live with friendliness, they learn the world is a nice place in which to live.                                                                    (Dorothy Law Nolte, Librarian.)

This next week, let your family’s life together be the classroom where your children can become the person that God created them and wants them to become.