A Strong Family - Part 2

Welcome to the In Touch Podcast with Charles Stanley for Thursday, September eighth. What do you do when your family has experienced brokenness of some kind? Today's podcast gives you encouraging words that help believers thrive in any difficult situation. God wants us to have strong, loving families. So, the purpose of this message is this, is to give you the characteristics of a strong family.

It doesn't mean that you have to do every single one of these things, but it does mean this. These are the characteristics of strong families. So, somebody says, Well, how would you define that kind of a family?

I'd simply say this. And that is, we mean by a strong family, one in which the members of the family have love and devotion for one another. No other substitute, just love and devotion for one another.

That's the beginning of a strong family. Secondly, build biblical convictions into their life as a guide. Now, that means you need to know what you believe and you need to be able to stand up with the Word if necessary. For example, you want them to have a conviction that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and He's the way to salvation. You want them to have a conviction about how they treat each other to love other people and the convictions about forgiveness and on and on it goes. If you have those convictions, you can teach it to them by demonstration.

If you don't have those convictions, no matter what you say, it won't work. They're going to do what you do, not necessarily what you say. And then spend time with your children. What's their interest? And you say, Well, my kids, they don't seem to have the same interests I do.

Then maybe you need to change your interest. Maybe, in other words, make some adjustment, depending upon the age, of course. So that, in other words, kids love to do things with their parents. It says what I'm doing is important. It says what I'm doing, he or she thinks it's important.

That they respect what I do as well as I do it. And so, I can remember when I used to build little model airplanes. You know, the stick and paper kind, you'd, my mom, she'd come and see me doing that. And she would always say something complimentary. Now, she didn't know a thing in the world about what I was doing. But she'd say, Oh, Charles, that really looks, ooh, you must be smart.

That didn't take me very smart. Because I had a blueprint and you put the stick in, put pins in, you put sticks in, you finally put them all together with glue and put paper on them, you sail them. And so, but you know what? She always encouraged me. Whatever I was doing, she was always an encouragement.

And you say, Well, that's not very, very important. Because you see, she didn't stop encouraging me making model airplanes. She encouraged me when I was preaching the gospel. But she encouraged me all my life. That word encouragement is a powerful word.

It's a powerful action. Everybody wants to be encouraged. Everybody needs encouragement in their life at times. There's nobody who's beyond the need of encouragement. Because things happen in our life, we can't always handle it by ourselves. We need to be able to tell somebody, share it with somebody, kids especially.

And so, I want to encourage you to do that. Then, plan fun things together until they get a certain age and then they're gone. And you know, think about this. You love them when they're small and you all can do this and do that. There's going to come a time when you know what? They're not interested in that.

They have their own world. And what you want to do is, listen, you want to build memories into their life where they can remember what you all did together. If you sat down with Andy and said, what did you and your dad do together?

He would talk about us fishing together, about us loving that especially, about playing games together. There's something about what you do together. I may not always agree, but that togetherness. Now, if you're a husband or wife and you love your husband or wife, it's that togetherness you like. In other words, if you love her and you love Him, you want Him around. Because there's something about, that's the way God made us.

He made us persons to love and to be loved and to show interest. Then, of course, you have to be willing to ask for forgiveness. If you can't ask for forgiveness, you can't have a strong family. We all make mistakes. And when my kids were young, I would say to them about once every three months, I'd say, well, tonight at supper, let's just talk about if we have anything between us that we've not talked about, not dealt with, then let's just get it out and make everything clean. So, I said, fine.

And so, a few times they didn't have anything. I remember one time I said, so tonight, that's what we're going to do. I said, Becky, do you have anything that you need to bring up that maybe I've done?

Yes, I do. She didn't hesitate. She told me about something that happened years before, that she hadn't mentioned before. I made her go into her room, shut the door, and the door, I didn't knock it, she thought I did.

And it, but it was tight, and so she couldn't get out. She was very, very young at that point. All, listen to this, all these years, and she was a teenager. Now, she's probably about fifteen to sixteen. This happened when she was about six.

All these years, in her little mind and heart, was this thought. My daddy locked me in a room by myself. It finally came out. I said, Beck, let me just say this, no defense. I didn't lock you in, but I shut it. And I knew that it was tight, and I knew you couldn't get out. So, I want to ask you to forgive me, that I did that in all these years. It was back in your subconscious, and you probably for some reason didn't ever want to say it, and I'm grateful to God that you told me that, because it really broke my heart to think that I would shut her out about anything. So, somebody says, well, that gets too personal.

You're mighty right it does. And if you're not man enough to take it, then you'll never have a strong family. You have to, you, we all make mistakes. We all hurt people without realizing that we do. And when we do, we need to say, I want to ask you to forgive me. You ask God to forgive you, He always does. If you ask Him to forgive you and they refuse, that's okay. You've asked for forgiveness, you've settled your conscience, you've confronted it. Don't leave anything unforgiven, because listen to me, forty years from now, they'll still remember it. And it's destructive, and it's not worth it. You have to be forgiving, and you have to be willing to say, you are right, I am sorry, please forgive me. You know what that does in their mind? Makes you a giant, because you're no longer untouchable. You're a father, and you have feelings, and you know what they'll do with their children?

The same thing. If you look back in your family and the kind of influence your parents had, it could be bad influence or good. You'll remember some things they did or said that you've never forgotten, never forgotten.

It's amazing how those things will pop up in your mind. Then, of course, when a problem comes, don't take sides. If you've got a boy and a girl, whatever it might be, or three or four, five, six kids, don't take sides. Just listen and say, we need to talk about this and think about it. If you take sides, what you do is you drive one away.

You can deal with major problems without taking sides. Somebody's probably more wrong than the other. But instead of saying, you're wrong, why do you always do this, we'll never have peace in this family as long as you act that way, all you're doing is driving them away. And sometimes you may have to say, well, you know, I didn't give very good instruction.

I think this is my fault. We just have to release our pride and just say whatever's necessary at the time to keep from having a brawl, a fight, a fuss, and divide the family and keep the family strong. So, listen carefully. Always be honest with your children about everything.

Now, for example, listen carefully. Let's say that you are a daughter and you ask your dad about something and he was dishonest. He didn't tell you the truth.

And he did that two or three times. When this little girl grows up and she's looking for a husband and this young man or that young man, whatever it might be, do you know what's still in her subconscious? You can't trust men. Or you say, that's not true.

It is absolutely the truth. When a person of such authority as your father is dishonest, doesn't tell the truth, lies, or you can call it anything you want to, what a child sees that, hears that, feels that, carries that, and what happens? When it comes to men, listen carefully. Her experience with the most important man in her life is you can't trust them.

That's exactly what happens. So, I want to encourage you to be honest. Listen, no matter what you say, do what you say because what you say is not what they're going to do necessarily. It's what you do.

It's what they're going to do. And you can wreck their family very early in life. Then, of course, I'd say last of all at this point, be a refuge for one another. When somebody's hurting, be there.

If you can't be there in person, be there on the telephone, not by texting on the telephone. It's got to be personal. I need to hear your heart, sweetheart. You tell me, son, you tell me exactly how you're feeling.

In fact, I want to know how you're feeling. When you're hurting, I'm hurting. And listen, when some member of your family hurts and you don't hurt, you have a problem because they're your children. They're part of you and you should be able to feel what they feel because especially if they come to you with some hurt.

Don't defend yourself. Don't just listen carefully and do your best to encourage them and to help them any way you possibly can walk through whatever they're walking through in life. Now, you say, well, now what about broken homes? Is there any way to have a strong home once it's broken, once there's divorce, once there's separation?

Yes, there is. It may not be as strong as it could be, but it can still be strong. You say, well, how do you do that? And listen carefully. The first way we started off, we started off with two Christian parents together. So, remove that for a moment and everything after that, you can practice in a home that's broken. And the husband's gone or the wife's gone or there's somebody else, you've married somebody else, whatever's going on there. You can still practice all of those principles, every single one of them, except that you, this is a different family and you have a major issue right up front.

And so, I would simply say this. If the family is blended, if you got two children from her and two children from him or whatever, if you'll just remember this, stay physically and emotionally close to your children primarily, your children. Stay close. In other words, if your wife takes them away or your husband takes them away, stay as emotionally close to them as you can because, listen, they're part of you.

They came out of you, Mom. They're still your children. And so, Mom and Dad need to stay as close as they can physically and emotionally so that they never feel like their parents just left them. And oftentimes, that's difficult, especially if a wife or husband have had a terrible, horrible divorce and now that they're at the point of hating each other and hear children. I think about the awesome, horrible trauma in a child's heart who sees one day his dad walk off and not come back. A little girl who sees her father walk off and not come back. And no matter what you tell them, they can't, they don't understand that.

And I think of this, Dad, when you walk off, remember this, you will give account to a holy God by bringing children into this world and you absolutely desert them not realizing you tear apart in that child's heart. Their whole emotional being gets affected. You say, well, I get over it. No, they don't. They do not get over it.

It's there as a scar as long as they live. This is why you should do your best to keep that marriage together. Sometime you can't. No matter what happens, sometimes it doesn't work.

Somebody decides they're going to leave and they're going to walk away no matter what. Then you can't help that. But God will be there to help you. And He'll be there to strengthen you. And He'll be there to help you love those children in a very unusual way.

Then if you're, if one parent leaves, increase your time of prayer and reading the Scripture with your children. In other words, you become the physical refuge. The Bible says that we live in the shadow of the Almighty.

In other words, if I'm in the shadow of something, there's something big there. And He says He's our shelter and our shadow and our keeper. And when you keep reading the Scripture with those children, the mom or dad's gone, and you have to understand and they have to understand, you know, we don't understand why. We don't want to be critical. We want to pray that whatever's going on in their life, God will work in their life.

No matter how good you try to make it, there's a scar, there's hurt, and there's pain. But you do have a responsibility to alleviate as much of that as you can. And then remind them that trusting God is more important than ever before when one of your loved ones is gone. Trusting God's more important than ever before. Because now you don't have a father, you don't have a mother, now we have God. And what you want to drill into that child's heart is God is your Father. The earthly Father's gone, but God is your Father now. And He'll provide your needs, He'll provide our needs. And I know in my life, not having a father for those years, my mother would keep reminding me that our heavenly Father was my Father now.

And that we're going to make it somehow in some way, and times got pretty tough, but she was always there to encourage me. And one of the interesting things you can do for those children is give them a verse of Scripture every morning that maybe God laid on your heart. And just ask them, say, well, why don't you read this before you go to school this morning? And if you've given them a Bible and they have their Bible, then and just say, well, maybe this evening, when we eat dinner, we'll just talk about this. Something that would apply to them. And if you gave, when I quote to you often, that God says, He'll teach us in the way we should go. He'll guide us with His eye upon us. Well, to a little child, they can sort of get that.

So, you'll know exactly what to say to them. And this is a wonderful opportunity for you to teach the importance of their personal relationship with God and that no matter what happens in life, you're going to make it. We're going to make it. We're going to have a strong family no matter what. It'll never be as strong as it could be, but it'll be stronger than most people allow theirs to become. And so, I want to encourage you, whoever you are, if you've never trusted Jesus Christ as your Savior, you're going to have a very difficult time having a strong family and growing strong children.

We live in a world that's slanted against their kids in every way. There's something out there everywhere to destroy them mentally, physically, and morally. You are their refuge. You are their help. You need them. They need you. Everybody needs God. And I want to encourage you to trust Christ as your Savior.

Ask Him to come into your life, help you to be the kind of person God wants you to be, and be the kind of parent, a godly parent that you need to be. You may be a son or a daughter and you've treated your family terribly. You say, well, that's been a long time ago. You know what? They still hurt. They'll still hurt. You say, well, they've forgotten, and no, they don't. You don't forget when people hurt you deeply as a child, and they don't forget when you hurt them. So, I would encourage you to settle up any issues in your family. Ask for forgiveness. Make things right. And do your best to honor your mother and to honor your father. And I want to say to you this morning, all of us have responsibilities to our children. We have responsibilities to each other, to love one another, to help each other any way we possibly can.

That's what being a Christian is all about. And I want to encourage you to take the notes that you have today. You can put them on the shelf somewhere, you'll be sorry. What you need to do is to look them over, read them over, and if I want to remember something that's normally I would have difficult time remembering, I make a list of it and I lay it somewhere I can just see it every day. I just read over it and read over it and read over it.

Here's what I discovered a long time ago. When something comes up I need to remember, there it is. Not because I read it once and not because I hurt it once, because I knew I was at the ease of me to forget some of it. You've not heard anything unimportant.

It's all been important, all works, it's all truth. And you're talking about raising children, raising grandchildren, and some of you grandparents, you're going to have to step into the position of a parent because your children have just blown it bad in their marriage. But grandparents, there's something about a grandparent.

I'm telling you, I know that. And I've watched this with my own grandchildren. When they got to be teenagers, at first you know I was just gimps.

Then there came a time in their life when they had questions. And then it was gimps, let's talk and go to dinner with them and I want them to hear me. I want to hear what they're thinking, what they're saying, and they say to them, gimps, always be available. Call me, write me, whatever you want to do. If you get in trouble, call me. If you've got questions, call me. If you're hurting about something, call me. In other words, grandparents, make yourself available. You are not too busy to hear your grandchildren. You're not too busy. And they need you.

You know what? You'll be like an anchor to them. I can always go to gimps. I know He'll be there for me. They'll do the same for you. If you're not saved, you're working against yourself. I plead with you in Jesus' name to give yourself to Him, asking Him to forgive you of your sins and trusting Him as your Savior. And then let God work in your life and the life of your family. Thank you for listening to part two of A Strong Family. If you'd like to know more about Charles Stanley or InTouch Ministries, stop by InTouch.org. This podcast is a presentation of InTouch Ministries, Atlanta, Georgia.