I’m confused frequently on how to be the strong, manly family leader I’m supposed to be, while being the loving, forgiving husband to my wife that christ was to the church.
Aware
A Ministry of First Baptist Church of Malabar, FL
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God’s word does indeed give us His plan and purpose for how relationships in families should function and operate. Living out those relationships as God intended will challenge us. What I have found to be true is that the most important relationship in my life is my relationship with God. If I can get that relationship right, then I will have the foundation necessary needed to get all my other relationship right. I also realize I am only one side of any relationship and it takes two to make any relationship work (well actually three when you factor in God who is by far the most important relationship).
Growing up we are all influenced and shaped by our family of origin, for good and for bad. If it were possible, I would love to be able to go back in time and be a better son, brother, husband, etc. Looking back at my life, there are so many things I would do differently if I had the opportunity. Life has a way of teaching all of us painful, yet life changing lessons. While it may be easy to blame others for what is wrong in our lives, we are all responsible for the choices we make in this life.
As a pastor, I often see family relationships in an up close way. Family dynamics take on many forms and they operate accordingly. No family is perfect and every family will have its struggles. Even in families that may outwardly seem to have it all together, there are often problems.
I vividly remember hearing the testimony of the son of an extremely well known pastor and author. In his testimony, he shared his struggle with addictions. While his father was very comfortable speaking publically and connecting in a dynamic way with 1,000′s in his preaching, teachings, and writings, he said his father was extremely uncomfortable and he struggled mightily to connect in one on one relationships. The son shared that while he loved his father and he knew that his father loved him, growing up he never had the kind of close personal relationship with his father that he so desired. He admired and respected his father, but he felt like he never quite measured up.
During his teenage years, he attempted to fill the void in his life with all the wrong things and so it was, the downward spiral in his life began. While he did not blame his father for his addictions, through counseling he began to understand “why” he made such bad choices in his life. It was through that understanding that he begin to break free from the stronghold of addiction in his life.
The hope we have is that we serve a God of who loves us and who will set us free and help us in our relationships which will always be a work in progress.
All good stuff, but I was focusing more on the pair-bond relationship, man and woman, cleaving to each other. I find it hard to balance the leadership role, akin to christ’s leading the church, with the sacrifical love for my mate, just like christ sacrificed for the church.
I think that one of the important things we forget is that Christ/God showed love in all its forms. Not just kindness and forgiveness. There was also a love that guided and directed. A love that disciplined and stepped in at distructive times.
Some loving actions could easily be seen as anything but loving. I sometimes like to look back at an example God made of a family that disobeyed His direct order. Isreal had taken and destroyed (by God’s order) a city and everything in it. Except one family kept some of the valuable items. God ordered the elimination of the entire family, as I recall. I’m sure they didn’t feel loved, but I bet it was a few generations until one of the other families engaged in an activity that would harm Isreal as a whole.