Recently in a discussion in our Sunday School class, we were discussing the breakdown of family structure in our culture. While it’s easy to blame the current generation for letting this happen, we reflected on the past generations and remembered how many men sent their wives and children to church while he did something else.
Yes, it all started many years ago and has derailed into what we have today.
Having said this, I want to encourage you all with some of the things we can do to make ourselves better parents and grandparents.
There is a wonderful wisdom saying in Proverbs. “Bring up a child in the way he should go and when they are old they will not soon depart from it”. (Proverbs 22:6)
We love our children and grandchildren and treat them well yet sometimes they turn away from us.
Sometimes they journey on roads we do not understand or roads that we do not approve of.
But in the end if our hearts are open, if the foundation is well laid, we see them return to us much as the Prodigal Son returned to his Father.
This seems to be the record of things. If the door is open, they will normally pass through it.
I think part of the problem we have as parents is not that we have difficult children or even that they speak a different language than we do though all this is very often true.
I am convinced a portion of the problem is that we as parents often do not know the way our children should go. And more importantly even when we know the way we so often fail to live it.And so, our children become angry, distant, alienated from us and from God.
So, what is the way?
As parents and grandparents we must actually live Godly lives. We must keep promises concerning our relationship to the Lord. We must keep our promises in our relationship with our family and our relationships with other people. We must be mature in the faith and be the spiritual examples of the family as God has called us to be. We must commit ourselves to building strong biblical marriages and support the mission of Christ with our time, talents, and with our prayers. We must devote ourselves to demonstrating the love of Christ in our community. We are to live moral and virtuous lives based on scriptural principles. The result will not only be the renewal of our own lives as Christians; It will bring renewal to our families, to our churches, to our community and ultimately to our world.

And it is working it is working because the secret of all successful marriages and of all successful parenting and grand parenting always rests in two sets of hands.
First and foremost, in the hand of God and secondly in our hands. If we allow those hands to be linked together the results are incredible.
Lives are changed. Lives improve. Families are healed.
If we lead godly lives then the odds are that our children and grandchildren will lead Godly lives.
If we seriously want to do something to bring change in the family breakdown in America, then we need to get serious about living our own lives the way God desires.

Love in Christ,
Pastor Dan