The Blessings of a Healthy Christian Family
Can you have a healthy, loving family?
Listen now: The Blessings of a Healthy Christian Family – Series 7, Episode 8
In our current series, Managing Your Dysfunctional Family, we’ve talked a lot about what dysfunctional families look like: the rules that are followed, the mistakes that are made, and the hurts that divide. In this episode, John, Shay, and Austin are going to finish our series by looking at healthy, thriving families. You and your family members can learn to love each other well and enjoy the blessings that come from striving to follow God and serve him.
When we say, “Christian family”, this doesn’t mean perfect, sinless families – there aren’t any! Instead, a Christian family is one that admits that sin is a problem and fights against it, is open and honest about questions and doubts concerning the Christian faith, and prioritizes spiritual growth in the form of prayer, Bible study, and being involved in a church community.
What a Healthy Christian Family Looks Like
1. The“4 S’s” of attachment are practiced & communicated:
Seen - “I matter and my family wants to know me inside and out”
Soothed - “I have a place to go for refuge and comfort”
Safe – “I am not physically or emotionally threatened or in danger”
Secure - “I can trust that my place in this family is secure”
2. Conflict resolution skills are used:
Own your behavior and take responsibility for the hurt it causes others
Apologize and make amends for hurtful behavior
Offer forgiveness when someone else shows signs of genuine repentance
Model your behavior on Jesus, who spoke truth in love
3. Family fun is a priority:
Establish family traditions
Plan things to do together that the whole family can enjoy
Cultivate a feeling of belonging and closeness
Family togetherness parallels our close relationship with God!
4. Your family does things for God’s glory:
Put God in the center of your marriage, parenting, work, and play
Have an attitude of humility and dependence on God, even in trials and hardships
Provide a safe place for comfort and healing
Practice the spiritual disciplines and serve God together
The Rewards of Cultivating a Godly Family
Impact on you personally
To be born in a Christian home means you will hear about the gospel from a young age and be told about what a great savior and king Jesus is. You have the privilege of expressing your faith in Jesus and cultivating a life of wisdom right from the beginning!
Impact on your marriage
If you are in a marriage where only one of you is a Christian, both you and your spouse experience benefits of the nearness of God. Paul says in 1 Corinthians 7 that unbelieving spouses are near the presence of God that his blessings and goodness would spill over into their lives, and that children and future generations will be blessed as well.
Impact on your family
When you’ve grown up with godly parents in a loving Christian home, you can bring those traits into your own family once you have a family of your own. You can protect your children from unwise decisions, neglect, abuse, and all kinds of other evils, and guide them in forming healthy attachments that will have a lasting positive impact on many generations to come.
Impact on society
First, Christian families have a chance to break false cultural stereotypes. It’s not uncommon for Christians to be pegged as naïve, uneducated, and out of touch. Sometimes those generalizations are warranted, but other times they are not. When we cultivate healthy Christian families, people in our neighborhoods, schools, and workplaces are going to witness the goodness and protection of walking with God.
Second, when we cultivate healthy Christian families, others around us will be blessed. Jeremiah was an Old Testament prophet writing to God’s people in exile in Babylon. This is what he exhorts those people to do in Jeremiah 29:7: “Seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare.” When your family makes a meal for a neighbor, or volunteers for charity, or when your kids treat classmates with kindness, you are “seeking the welfare of the city.”
What we do affects generations to come, so keep pursuing healthy ways of loving and relating as you lead your family. Always imperfectly, but with integrity. As it says in Psalm 103:17-18, “But from everlasting to everlasting the Lord’s love is with those who fear him, and his righteousness with their children’s children—with those who keep his covenant and remember to obey his precepts.”
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