Does your child/children like the atmosphere in your family?

A child starts its life as a baby in a family.  Each family has its habits, its routines, ways of doing things, and discipline….

What kind of family atmosphere is your child growing-up in?

These days, the idea of family is changing.  Mum, dad, children, grand-parents, uncles and aunts, cousins…all that becomes very complicate in reconstituted families, mixed race or single-parent families

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Do the children feel secure with their parents, or are they torn between them because of a stormy separation?  Do they find more security with their grand-parents?  What kind of relationships do they have with their brothers and sisters, or children from another family?

Parents are answerable to God for the proper development of their children.

What are the priorities of fathers and mothers?  Their jobs that bring in money and social value, or peace in the home where everyone – either adult or child – feels loved, listened to, understood, respected, and supported?  It’s sometimes a very difficult choice.

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In the Bible, God shows us all sorts of families in different situations.  The families of Adam & Eve, Noah, Abraham & Sarah, Isaac & Rebekah, Jacob & Rachel, David, Elkana and Hannah, Zechariah & Elizabeth, Mary & Joseph, and Timothy and his mother and grand-mother.  God does not hide the difficult situations between husbands and wives, or with their children, or in the choices they make of husband/wife; difficulties of disobedience, fidelity and infidelity.

The Bible also gives us some ideas and some practical tips on how to live as a couple, and on our relationship with our children that means our children grow-up in a balanced way and in favour with both God and other people (2 Samuel 2:21 & 26)

It’s good when our children want to come home after school, when they are full of joy because the feel welcome and can invite their friends into a warm and peaceful atmosphere, where there is a spiritual life centred on Jesus, who says, “I give you my peace, not the kind of peace the world gives…” (John 14:27).

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For our children (and we, ourselves) to be able to live in this deep sense of harmony, we need to stay in contact with God.

God wants to be the God of the family, of our family – both adults and children.

Let’s decide like Joshua, “…as for me and my family, we will serve the Lord.” Joshua 24:15.