Based on learning from mistakes that we covered last week, I want to give you fathers out there something to consider for your family. This is also something that goes hand in hand with the Building Boundaries subject that we looked at in the series Behind Enemy Lines. Knowing who you are, where you are, where you want to be, and how to get there and stay there is important for growth individually and as a family. It is ineffective to sit around telling everyone else what they should do and not being willing to make changes yourself. I am posting a generic form of questions to ask yourself and each other member of the family. You have to start with yourself first, then your spouse and then the children. If you want your children to fly higher than you have ever reached you have to show them the possibility by flying higher than you have in the past to give them hope. Many children with great potential are dragged down by the downward, negative pull of their parents. 

As you look at these questions you will notice that there is a paragraph at the beginning of the wife’s section. This was written for my wife and is specific to our situation, so if you use this you will need to rewrite that to fit your family. Notice that it is full of compliments, looking at what we have accomplished, and putting out the hope that we can do even more. When you talk to your wife (or even children) about these things do it with a positive spirit of hope for the future to be better than the past and present. If you point out problems, start with the things you have done wrong, with a spirit of humility, not in arrogance or with finger pointing and blaming. Remember that as the husband and father God holds you accountable and responsible for your family’s direction and propulsion.

You will also notice generic phrases like ‘each son’ or ‘each daughter’. Personalize these and answer the questions for each one individually, not as a group. You may need more space than what is provided. In my original I have a separate page for each child with their names on the appropriate questions. Obviously, these questions will not be grasped by small children, and even some school-aged children may need some prompting or explanation. 

This is not something to do one time and stick in a file somewhere, it is like a map or set of directions that must be revisited regularly to make it to your goal. Don’t forget, you are going somewhere you have never been before. At each turn we need to adjust our vision. If my directions are to go 10 miles and turn right on highway 1, then go 3 miles and turn left on highway 2, etc. Once I have made the turn on highway 1 it would be foolish for me to think that I should drive 10 miles and look to turn right on highway 1. Once we have done that step we have to move on to the next step. We need to come back to our goals and visions to see what we have accomplished and how the future may look different. Goals for a 4 year-old are very different from goals for a 14 year-old. Goals for a newlywed couple are different from the goals of a couple with 4 young kids or a couple with grown kids or a couple with grandkids. 

Feel free to download these questions below and use them to help point you in the right direction.
jp

Here is an article on how we define success. What if you get to the top of the ladder only to find that it was leaning against the wrong wall? This article is worth our time and attention.  There are many more available at www.focuspress.org - jp

http://www.focuspress.org/files/Articles/July__08_think_pgs_22_23proofedjp_edit.doc

If our children are going to remain faithful to God in a time of trials and persecution there are some things we have to do to prepare them for something we have never faced before. One of those things is . . . Focus on the Future of Heaven.

We live in a society obsessed with instant gratification. Most people have trouble paying attention to a 20 minute sitcom on TV and some probably can’t make it through the 30 second commercials. We want our food ready in under 5 minutes. We want a pill that will make the pounds melt away or better yet liposuction to suck the pounds away in an afternoon. We want to win the lottery or a sweepstakes or get an inheritance and be rich. We want the newest computer gadget, fashion, car, fad, entertainment experience, etc. We want everything right now, but there are some things that don’t work that way. Stephen Covey uses the principle of the farm to help us understand that in the spiritual realm right now won’t work. Just as a farmer can’t wait until September to plow, plant, fertilize, do pest and weed control, and water if he expects a harvest in October, we can’t live a life of selfishness and instant gratification and expect to be able to harvest joy, peace, and patience. We can’t live like the devil and expect to spend eternity with God. We can’t raise our children to be materialistic, selfish, arrogant, worldly, immodest, spoiled brats and then think that at 18 or 21 or 25 or some other magic age they will automatically become spiritual, selfless, humble, godly, modest, kind saints. It takes hard work to scrub away the grime and the longer it has been hardening the more scrubbing it takes to get it off, like oatmeal dried in a pot for days(I would not recommend cooking oatmeal and then leaving the remnants in the pot for days, just some friendly advice from the voice of experience).

The problem is that everyone lives for the right now. Everyone says you only have one life to live so make the most of it. That is not true! We have two lives to live, one here on Earth and another to be determined by the way we live this one, in either Heaven or Hell. Even if both lives were of equal length it would not make sense to live the lives of reckless abandon that is becoming the norm. How much more pointless is it then when we consider that this life is but a speck of time compared to the one to come. Romans 8:13-18 reminds us not to compare them equally.

Are we truly naive enough to think that we and our children can be and do and have everything that the worldly people are and do and have and yet by some miracle not be worldly people. Do we think because we call America a Christian nation that 2 Corinthians 6:13-18 doesn’t apply anymore. The fact of the matter is that we have got to start looking past this world and its pleasures. What if our kids didn’t get to watch cartoons? Would that be so bad? What if they didn’t go to the mall or the movies with friends when they wanted to go? What if they didn’t get to play that sport, be in that club, learn ballet or karate? What if we didn’t go out to McDonald’s? What if they didn’t get to ___________(put your child’s favorite activity in the blank)? Would we be horrible parents? Now let me ask one more. What if they did get to do all of those things and more, but didn’t get to go to Heaven? That doesn’t mean that every activity is evil, but does it cause such a distraction or such a desire, or take time that should be spent on spiritual development in such a way that it hinders spiritual growth.

I heard one father say recently that he didn’t care if his kids were not the most athletic, the best spellers, the most artistic, the smartest with the best grades, etc. he wanted them to be the best Christians. Now Christianity is not a competition like football or a spelling bee, but what if the world got to the point that it was in Noah’s day and there was only one family that was right with God. Would you want that one family to be your family? What if we live in a city that becomes like Sodom and Gomorrah? What if we can’t just move to another town because they are all that way? Would you be the one family that God would try to save? What if things were like in Elijah’s day? Would you be one of the 7000 that didn’t bow the knee to Baal? What if you are in a church like the one Moses led out of Egypt? When everyone starts throwing their hands up and quitting will you join them or speak up and stand up like Joshua and Caleb? If we don’t have our sights set on Heaven we will fail when the tough times come, and if the world is in our hearts like it was in Lot’s wife’s we will never escape.

Do not be deceived God is not mocked, whatever a man sows is what he will reap. Galatians 6:7-9 reminds us of the spiritual law of the farm. We need to remind ourselves and our children not only with words or songs, but with actions that this world is not our home. We are just traveling through on our way to somewhere better, Heaven, Hebrews 8:11-16. Don’t miss out by having too much here, and not making it there. Keep your focus on that unseen city.

Do you ever get sidetracked? I know we do at our house. It isn’t that we don’t know what is important or what we want to do, it is just that the little things of daily life get in the way. I believe it is a problem for any families that are trying to live beyond the day to day activities of living. I have been thinking about this a great deal lately and hope to start implementing some things that will help our family get back on track and stay on track more than we have been.

The fact is no family is perfect and every family will have ups and downs. The key is to get back up when you are down, to get back on track when you are off. There are course corrections that have to be made regularly. As the father of the family you can’t just let the family take its natural course or it will crash. Like driving a car you have to keep it on the road. If you take your hands of the steering wheel things may look okay for a few seconds, but the car will soon be heading into oncoming traffic or toward the ditch. Sometimes we veer a little, and sometimes we may even take a wrong turn and be on the wrong road, but we have to turn it around and get back to the road we want that is going to take us where we want to go.

I recall trying to get somewhere and following someone else who was supposed to be going to the same place. I did not have my own directions, and they didn’t know where we were going like I thought they would. Needless to say, it was a mess. We took several wrong turns that I could have avoided if I had good directions to follow. We need to remember that it is our responsibility as fathers to get our family where we are going, and we can’t just follow someone else. A preacher, elder, deacon, or other seemingly spiritual Christian may wind up leading us down the wrong road if we don’t have our own set of directions to follow. If we have directions and we see someone else take a wrong turn, we can still go the right way.

We have to beware of following the majority or a group. Exodus 23:2 says, "Thou shalt not follow a multitude to do evil; neither shalt thou speak in a cause to decline after many to wrest judgment:" I was going to a large event one time in a larger city than I was used to. I knew generally where to go, but not exactly. I figured since it was such a big event that once I got close I could just follow the many cars that would be going that way. It didn’t work out quite right. Apparently there were some other things happening that a bunch of people were going to as well. I saw a line of cars getting off the interstate at one particular exit and thought that must have been it, so I followed. You guessed it, wrong! At the end of the exit ramp those cars went all different directions and I didn’t know which way to go. Even in the church, a group of people who are all supposed to be trying to go to heaven, people are going all kinds of different directions. You can’t just blindly follow the majority even among Christians.

Take hold of the wheel and guide your family. We sometimes try to push and pull and lift and everything else. Have you ever noticed how hard it is to push a car to the right or left compared to the ease with which you can do it from the driver’s seat with the steering wheel. Drive your family, don’t push them.