The Family Secret: What Makes Homes Stronger
A practical Christian study of “The Family Secret: What Makes Homes Stronger,” with clear application for faith, relationships, and everyday life.
The Family Secret
Play the original Excel Still More episode here without leaving the article.
Start with your relationships
Communities, government officials, all of it made up of people in families, influenced by what goes on behind the front door. I won't even give you any today, but I could give you dozens about our children and how they grow up and the kind of relationships that they build and the kind of education that they get, the level of success they enjoy, the depth of faith with which they live.
And we try to tie that back to monetary factors, ethnicity factors, community factors, but the single strongest, I'm totally convinced of this, indicator of the success of a young person in adulthood is their family.
See the deeper issue
The family secret that makes the most profound and important impact upon the people you love is you. Your input, your example, your attitude, the way you handle things, the depth to which the love of God lives in your heart is the single most important element for what happens in your family.
Firstly, and most obviously, the only person you truly have the power to change in your entire life is you.
Act with love and purpose
My two youngest children would just spontaneously sit on the couch with their Bibles in the morning and begin reading them, remind us to pray over dinner if we got in a hurry, and talk about people that they'd met who needed help. Because of lectures that I gave them, sermons they heard their dad preaching, newsflash, sermons don't do a lot of good in and of themselves, even if your dad is the preacher.
But when they see their dad working on himself, his attitude, his words, his actions, it feels right for them to follow along.
Bring it home
Actually, if you want to just be mad at them for a while, you may not want them to apologize right away, but eventually you'd like for them to do so. Listen, only to the extent that you are willing to take ownership for your mistakes, to admit them, confess them, apologize for them.
How do you expect your teenager to take responsibility for something that he's done wrong when he has seen you make mistakes and never once sit down and admit it?
Take the idea with you.
- 01Where do I see the problem or opportunity described in “The Family Secret: What Makes Homes Stronger” in my own life?
- 02What Scripture or spiritual principle in this study most needs my attention?
- 03What one specific change can I make this week to put this teaching into practice?
Prefer listening?
The original episode player is available near the top of this article, so you can listen without leaving the page.