What is a Family ?
by Dave on 2002-10-13 00:11:57
Many organizations and individuals have questioned for many years what
composes a family. I would be very vain indeed if I thought that in these
few pages I could give the ultimate answer. Please allow me to share with
you what my humble opinion is, of a family. A family is a group of people
that love each other. This love can take many forms from enduring the pain
of child birth, to standing by the graveside as your loved one is laid to
rest.
Being a part of a family may mean saying what the other person does not want
to hear, when they need to hear it. Family is the group of people that will
take you back after you have betrayed all their trust and abandoned them.
Many times though not always, family is the group of people that live in your
house. Family is the people that change dirty diapers and foul habits. They
help train children, so that the child can navigate through society with a
minimum of trouble. Family provides for the basic material needs: Food,
Clothing and shelter of an individual. A family shares the resources of the
individuals among all the members of the family.
Traditional families have a Father, Mother and one or more children, abiding
in the same house and grandparents in their own houses. Modern times(Post
World War II) have seen some major changes in this traditional view of the
family. As the industrial age has come and nearly been completely replaced
by the technology age, divorce and single parenthood has become more
prevalent.
A lost of community, has resulted in a lost of morality. People do not know
their neighbors; so they do not care what others think. A increase in
productivity and innovation has created a self-reliance. This self-reliance
has given people the illusion that they do not need each other; that they do
not need God. If they do not need God, then they do not need to follow His
commands. The result is absence of morality. Except people want a set of
standards and so they seek, their “civil rights”. Which in truth is the
right to do whatever they feel is fair in their own hearts. They do not want
to hear the truth because it, limits their freedom. So they make
interpretations to outlaw prayer or the Bible in schools. They bring
witchcraft and tolerance into the schools. There is a increase in
co-habitation. Homosexuals are attempting to claim the legitimacy of
marriage.
The family is under attack today. What is a family ? A family is a
representation of the relationship that we should have with our heavenly
father. The only love that is greater than a mother’s love, is the love of
God. While a mother can love a child, even after he has committed murder.
God knows all things. He knows the course of our lives before we were
conceived and He loves us. He loves us so much that He made provision for us
to be with Him for all of eternity. We think that our lives are so long and
yet they are but a grain of sand on the beach of eternity. Just as a mother
gives nourishment to her child for physical growth; so to does God provide
substance; (The Bible, the teaching of Pastors, the guidance of the Holy
Spirit) for our spiritual growth. As a Father corrects his child, so to do
we as God’s children receive discipline to become all that God would have
for us to be. As we have physical siblings, we also have brothers and
sisters in the Lord, which we fight with and tease.
Well, obviously this will not work for my assignment of describing a family.
But this is brainstorming too good to just throw away. I wonder if anybody
else would like to read this.
Dave Sumner
Eccl 11:4-5 Whoever watches the wind will not plant; whoever looks at the
clouds will not reap. As you do not know the path of the wind, or how the
body is formed in a mother’s womb, so you cannot understand the work of God,
the Maker of all things. (NIV)