|
 |
Family Life & Marriage
Article 4
Focus On Prayer
- Prayer Team #3 - Ben Stapel -
#586-731-0579
- Remember to join
one of the 13 Teams.)
|
 |
|
“FAMILY”
by Ben Stapel
The Bible describes the family as a husband, with a wife like a
fruitful vine inside the home, the children like olive plants around
the table. (Ps 128:3-4) In the mid-fifties, almost two-thirds of
families conformed to that description with a working father, a
stay-at-home mom, and two to three children or more. When Dad came
home from work everyone gathered around the table for the family
meal with the usually animated conversation about the day's events
in everyone's life. After chores the kids went out to play with the
neighborhood kids. Less than half the adult population was in the
work force.
From the mid-eighties to today, less than one in twenty families are
like that. Few moms stay at home, few homes have more than two children.
Two children can sit across the table from each other; it is difficult
to visualize them around the table. Today's TV dinners are advertised as
being so easy to prepare that a ten-year- old can have it ready for mom
when she comes home from work. A family meal today might happen once a
week, if at all. Our children interface with electronic "communication"
equipment for more than 60 hours per week. They are in school or on the
road almost 40 hours. Organized sports - and other activity outside the
family - take more time away from family influence, especially on
Sunday.
|
|
As I write this article in the last week of January, we have
just commemorated the ignominious Roe vs. Wade decision. It was
a grave attack on the family. But unless we can face the root
cause of the abortive mind set, it will not be ended. The real
sin of our society is the contraceptive mentality that has
pervaded the very fabric of family life. Starting in 1960 with
the advent of the pill, continuing in the 80's and 90's with an
endemic embrace of sterilization by a large component of the
population, society has now arrived at the stage where our very
morality has done a complete about-face. It is now seen as
immoral to have more than one or at most two children. I have
witnessed the attack by total strangers on mothers with three or
four children while shopping in a grocery store. These mothers
are berated for their “total lack of responsibility to society
by bringing too many children into this world.”
Let us storm heaven this Lent with focused prayer and fasting to
bring an end to our contraceptive view of family life and to
return to the meaningful, Godly view of family where fertility
is seen as a blessing.
Ben Stapel is a member of the Life in the Spirit Prayer Group at
St. Sebastian, Dearborn Heights, MI, and serves on the DCCR
Assembly. |
Top of
Page
|
|
 |
NOW WORD SERIES for
March/April, 2010
(Based on the NOW Word discerned November, 2009)
by Ben Stapel |
 |
|
This is the first time that the word FAMILY appears three times in the NOW word.
In the past it was there not at all or perhaps once.
The call begins with an
invitation that presupposes a family relationship: "Come, be with Me each day."
It is only with family that we have a daily togetherness.
The very next word, "walk," describes an activity that today is almost
non-existent; Jesus asks us to walk in Him and with Him. Walking together forges
a bond that is enhanced by intimate talking - He walks with me and He talks with
me.
Then He says, "Come, be rooted in my love." When we are rooted we are
immovable, we belong in that spot; it is through the rootedness that we are
completely nourished and kept alive. Jesus tells us that He wants us to be
totally dependent on His love. The picture that comes to mind is that of a baby
implanted, rooted, in its mother's womb. That is family. Jesus says so Himself:
"Come as My family." |
|
Around
the Mediterranean, family is seen as a relationship of total
belonging, where leaving is impossible. Once we are family we
are so forever. Because Jesus is speaking to us as Americans,
whose sense of family has been blurred, He wants to be sure that
we understand his Mediterranean perspective. So He asks, "Do you
understand who you are in My family?" He doesn't ask us to
understand what we are. The word “who” is personal. It doesn't
matter WHAT we are or do. In every family there is a family
resemblance. We have to look like Jesus, act like Jesus, be
focused on Jesus, have the same dreams as Jesus, the same values
as Jesus. We must be Jesus persons, Jesus' family.
In the promises, He carries through with this theme. He is all
we need; He shares everything with us as family. He will always
be at our side. He will lead us, mentor us as an older brother.
He is never deaf to our cries. We can trust Him. He will give up
His very life for us. Then Jesus throws the word, “family,” into
the mix again. He says your families are My family too - I will
draw them ever closer to Myself.
At the very end of the NOW word, in His directives, Jesus goes
back to the way families were before this dark age of the
family. He goes back to the time when Sundays were family days,
visiting days. He tells us to walk with each other and with Him,
especially on the Sabbath, the Lord's Day. That's when He works.
(John 5:17)
|
Top of
Page
Top of Now Word
|
|
