GOD'S BUILDING BLOCK

I have made so many mistakes in life. I have erred so many times with family … especially as a son, brother, husband and father. Yet by God’s grace I have hope to redeem my faults and find new opportunities.

This week I read an article about the priority of family. Its truth resonated deeply within me. Here are some quotes:

“The poison of the parents bleeds into the next generation and the cycle of hatred continues to spin and destroy.”

“From being blood brothers to wanting the blood of your brother is an all too common pathway of families.”

“The world in every culture needs to see how to have a family not filled with broken relationships but where there is love, respect, kindness and mercy.”

Below is the complete article. The author is Dr. Al VomSteeg, Senior International Director of International Leadership Institute. http://www.iliteam.org

It seems like each time we teach the core value of Family Priority that God seems to move upon the conference participants with such an impact that almost each person is broken over some part of the teaching. In spite of the fact that each culture views the family in its own particular emphasis there is no doubt “God looks for men and women who are convinced that the family is God’s building block for society”. That makes our challenge to “make family a priority” as the first place in our ministry of ‘developing leaders’.

Some of the saddest stories in the Bible have to do with fathers who can lead a nation but don’t provide true leadership to their families. At times both parents picked their favorites and in the end the brothers turn into bitter enemies. The result is rebellion against their parents. Jealousy and resentment seems to abolish the fact that they have the same parents. The poison of the parents bleeds into the next generation and the cycle of hatred continues to spin and destroy.

We know it started with Cain and Abel and it continued through each generation. Choose your example: Jacob and Esau; Joseph and his brothers, Absalom and Amnon. It seems that once the relationship is broken between brothers it multiplies and spreads to all the family. This tragic truth of the multiplication of hatred was illustrated by Joseph’s brothers when they first wanted to kill their younger brother and instead sold him into slavery to a caravan of Ishmaelites who were passing by.

The members of the Ishmaelites caravan who bought Joseph from his brothers and sold him in Egypt were called Midianites [Gen.37:28, 36]. Midian and Medan were two sons of Abraham by his second wife Keturah [Gen. 25:2]. From them developed a nomadic people who, though blood brothers of the Jews, became their constant enemies [Judges 6:1].

From being blood brothers to wanting the blood of your brother is an all too common pathway of families. Even Christian families are touched by this plague. This is why we teach that the family is a gift from God; a ministry from God and a responsibility from God. We teach that our ministry begins in the home before we go across the street, across the sea or get behind a pulpit to preach. The world in every culture needs to see how to have a family not filled with broken relationships but where there is love, respect, kindness and mercy.

If we go out and attempt to win the world for Christ while at the same time we fail to lead and care for our families as Christ cares for us, then someone will write our sad story right along with those of Abraham and David. It need not be. It should not be.