Family is about sharing and goals

This issue started out as one about family life. Although the focus changed as it came together, family was what I thought about in preparation for writing this editorial while travelling to spend time with our children in Pennsylvania.

Families are strange creatures. They are composed of people of both sexes and various ages, sizes and configurations. We love them and we get frustrated with them – hopefully more the former rather than the latter. And sharing is a big part of being a family.

I used to occasionally watch a TV quiz show called “Family Feud.” It had two families competing, trying to guess how the audience had voted on a number of questions. Each family worked together, sharing their ideas in order to get the best score.

This sharing was brought home to me recently when we spent time with two of our three children and their children – six adults and six kids. I learned that:

• It is possible for 12 people to live in one house with one bathroom if everyone takes turns.
• Electric appliances, like air conditioners, need to share the power with coffee makers and microwaves if everyone is to be comfortable.
• Covered bridges found accidentally when driving country roads are more fun when shared with family.

I also learned on the journey that it is important when reading the map to know more than just which town is coming next. Often road signs indicated not the next city, but a major city many miles down the road and this then became our destination. I related this to raising a family, and was reminded that parents need short-range goals, but also long-range goals.

Short-range goals are often the immediate incident – the child needs to get to bed on time – while one of the long-range goals may well be the physical and emotional health of the child fostered by a wind-down routine suited to that child.

Families in Scripture give us both positive and negative examples of child rearing. King David is an example of a permissive, yet loving father. Talking about his son Adonijah, 1 Kings 1:6 states, “His father never interfered with him.” David’s goal had been to make Solomon king in his stead, but now Adonijah was usurping the throne. But David also had as a goal that his sons would follow the Lord. Before he died, he told Solomon, “Observe what the Lord your God requires: Walk in his ways and keep his decrees and commands” (1 Kings 2:3).

Timothy, on the other hand, seems to have been raised in a single-parent family, by his mother Eunice and grandmother Lois, who had a goal of raising a son who would serve God.

Other than examples of good and bad parents, Scripture has much to say about the goals of raising good children:

• Proverbs 22:6 states: “Train a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not turn from it.”
• Deuteronomy 4:9 reminds parents to teach their children and their children’s children what God had done for them, while Deuteronomy 31:12–13 says, “Assemble the people . . . so they can listen and learn to fear the Lord your God. . . . Their children . . . must hear it and learn to fear the Lord.”
• The New Testament continues this teaching in Ephesians 6:4 when it states, “Fathers [or parents] do not exasperate your children; instead, bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord.”

Families operate better when sharing is practiced, and when parents have God-centred goals in rearing their offspring.