The Family Structure

The Family Structure
…Abraham shall surely become a great and mighty nation, and all the nations of the earth shall be blessed in him? For I know him, that he will command his children and his household after him, and they shall keep the way of the LORD, to do justice and judgment; that the LORD may bring upon Abraham that which he hath spoken of him. 
Geneses 18:18 & 19.

The family structure is very important because it needs to be strong generation after generation. Each generation is a cycle of dependence on other members of the family. If the structure is faulty, the cycle may break. A broken cycle inflects pain of different degrees on members of the family. We have all seen this in abused or neglected children, rebellious teens, deserted spouses, and neglect of the aged. People of every age and all social and economic levels are affected by emotional problems caused when the family structure is broken. Likewise the family with a good structure will be blessed generation after generation.

The family cycle begins with a baby totally dependent on adults. Those first five or six years are the training years when the behavior patterns and moral conscience of the child are forming. What happens to the child in these years has a lifelong effect. It is the parents’ most opportune time for training that will produce good results in later years. (Training is educating in behavior patterns using negative and positive stimuli.) As a child moves into middle school age, parents become teachers and coaches for their children. They show the children how to study, how to work, how to make goals for themselves, how to bring their bodies and emotions into control so they can be successful in life. Show them how and encourage them when they achieve a goal. Later in high school and college years parents continue coaching and become counselors in whom God has invested both wisdom and authority for their family. If the parent child relationship is a good one, this will be a precious time for both child and parent. Then comes the child’s adult years when parent and child are friends. This long period of time is when the parents reap rewards of his parenting years. Later when the parent becomes aged, the roles switch. Adult children become the adviser and authority over the parent. That completes the beautiful cycle that God ordained for families.

When your children are old enough to choose their friends will you have given then reason to choose you? Have you proved that you are trustworthy by being truthful to them? Or in their forming years did you tell them little white lies to get them to do what you wanted them to do? Have you often weakened in confrontations when you should have calmly stood for the correct? Have you respected them as a valuable person and kept a good relationship? Do your teen-agers consider you a part of their desirable relationships? If they do, it is because your family has learned to depend on each other. It is God’s desire that families be interdependent just as His church is interdependent (many members but all working together as members of a body. I Cor. 12:12-27)

Two predominant structures for families are interdependent and independent. To illustrate the interdependent family image a family standing in a circle holding hands and facing each other. They connect through touch and can easily communicate as each one can see the other. The members of an interdependent family find their identity and social, emotional and spiritual fulfillment together. The interdependent family is likely to stay in close contact after the children are adults and have families of their own.

The family with the independent structures is likely to slowly disintegrate when the children are older and begin choosing their friends. To illustrate an independent family structure image a group of people standing in a circle with their backs to each other and not holding hands. Communication is difficult without either hand or eye contact. Each one in this group is looking outward to his interests. The members of this family think and do for themselves without much consideration of other family members. Their social and emotional needs are met outside the family. A family with an independent structure often becomes a “dysfunctional family.” Divorce, child abuse, child neglect, drug or alcohol abuse, and sorrows of all sorts are the results. Some families fall into such deprave conditions as is described in Joel 3:3. “They… have given a boy for a harlot, and sold a girl for wine that they might drink.”  Other independently structured families serve well in society; however, their hearts are void of the rich blessings that God intended for a family to enjoy. Often these persons suffer depression, loneliness, and other emotional disorders that may lead to needing professional psychiatric help. A biblical proverb states that, “A brother offended is harder to win than a city.” Have we not seen this to be true? When brothers become angry at each other, it is extremely difficult that they be reconciled.

It is not hard to identify an independent adolescent, which is finding his or her social and emotional satisfaction outside the family. To get friends’ approval, he or she will conform in hairstyle, clothes, music, entertainment, speech and much more. They are becoming a part of another family (a family of peers). He has found a relationship, which he did not find in his family because the members of the family were working independently. He can find a certain amount of social and emotional satisfaction with his friends, however to find spiritual satisfaction he must come again under parental authority.

Is there hope for a family who is becoming fragmented to regain relationship with each other? In Joel 2:12-13, there is a promise. It says, “Turn ye even to me with all your heart, and with fasting, and with weeping… turn unto …God for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger and of great kindness…” In verse 25, it also says “I will restore to you the years that the locust hath eaten, the canker worm, and the caterpillar, and the palmer worm…: and my people shall never be ashamed.”  Zechariah gives another promise. He says, “Turn ye unto me, saith the Lord … and I will turn unto you.” 

Parents who are willing to admit they have made mistakes have already taken a big step toward a better family. Repent and ask Christ to help you to know how to train yourself and your children to depend on each other. Then gather your family and explain the mistakes you have made in the past and ask their forgiveness. Be careful not to focus on your children’s mistakes. Remember you are rebuilding relationships. You take the blame for the state your family is in. As an example: If you have been lacks on making obedience obligatory explain what God’s Word says. If it is respect, explain that. Then explain the course of action that you believe God wants you to take. Kindly answer any questions they may have, and pray together as a family.

To be successful in reconstructing a family, you must be determined; for an interdependent family structure is very opposite of the way the world believes a family should be. It is also contrary of human nature. Every person is born with a desire to be independent. Every child needs consistent supervision of a mother to become skilled in living interdependently with other members of a family. You may have to make some difficult changes like, the wife staying at home. You’ll need to put family above financial advancement. Some Biblical instructions are found in Titus 2:3-7. “The aged women…teach the young women to be sober, to love their husbands, to love their children, to be discreet, chaste, keepers at home, good, obedient to their own husbands, that the word of god be not blasphemed. Young men likewise exhort to be sober minded, in all things showing thyself a pattern of good words: in doctrine showing in-corruptness  gravity, sincerity, sound speech, that cannot be condemned…” 

Older children will watch to see if the attitude and the relationship between their parents has changed. They will want to see humility, genuine love, repentant attitudes, a striving to do better. Teenagers can sense hypocrisy in parents and usually do not want to identify with a hypocrite; however, they will often forgive and try to conform if the parents are sincere. Make good the chance you have to restore your family for you may not get another. Children grow up rapidly. If we as parents will seek God to give us a heart that will fear him and give us courage to obey all his commandments always, it will make a difference in our families. We can then have faith that God will bless our children and it will be well with them. Deuteronomy 5:29.

An old fable about a dying father with a bundle of sticks sums up these thoughts. He called his sons and asked each in turn to try to break the sticks while bound together in  the bundle. None could. Then he untied and separated the sticks and asked then again to break the sticks. Quickly the sticks were broken.  Then the father said, “My sons, if you are of one mind, and unite to assist each other, you will be as this bundle, uninjured by all the attempts of your enemies. But, if you are divided among yourselves you will be broken easily as these sticks.”

I thank God that we can have the blessing of God upon our descendants as Abraham had on his;  for we are children of Abraham and heirs of the kingdom of God. Galatians 3:7 reads like this: “Know ye therefore that they which are of faith, the same are the children of Abraham.” 

…Abraham shall surely become a great and mighty nation, and all the nations of the earth shall be blessed in him? For I know him, that he will command his children and his household after him, and they shall keep the way of the LORD, to do justice and judgment; that the LORD may bring upon Abraham that which he hath spoken of him. 
 
I Am The Child
I am the child.
All the world waits for my coming.
And the earth watches with interest
To see what I shall become.
Civilization hangs in the balance,
For what I am
The world of tomorrow will be.

I am the child.
I have come into your world,
About which I knew nothing.
Why I come, I know not.
How I came, I know not.
I am curious: I am interested.

I am the child.
You hold in your hand my destiny,
You determine, largely,
Whether I shall succeed or fail.
Give me, I pray you, those things
That makes for happiness.
Train me, I beg you, that I may be
A blessing to the world.