God's plan for the family

This past week-end I had the rare opportunity to speak with my brother.  He came over the house to eat the breakfast our mom had left for him.  Yes, at fifty plus my brother is still being left breakfast from his mother.  It is her expression of love and so he ate it heartily.  It was while he ate that we spoke.


Our topic went from the family as God intended to forgiving others because God says we should.  I am thinking now and I can't say that I remember how we even began.  I do know that God spoke truth and I know that chains were broken.  Jesus said that when we know His truth we will be free.


I told my brother that the family is set up to have God as the head, the husband as the covering of the wife and children, the wife and then the kids.  When we put God at the bottom we have an increased probability of failure, conflicts and heart ache without resolution and healing.  When we turn things upside down where the wife or child is the "boss", what we have is a recipe for chaos.    God established the family from before time and he has provided a template for us to follow.  It is to guarantee success if only we should follow.  God first.  Husband, loving their wives as Christ loves the church and being the Priest in the home.  Wife, submitting to her husband, coming under his head-ship and covering, not emasculating him or disrespecting him.  Children, honoring their mother and father so that their days may be long and it might be well with them.  A family under God, in God and with God.


So what has happened?  Well, sin is one word to cover all but it can be more defined.  He asked me which woman would agree with what I just told him.  I said maybe none that I know.  I honestly did not always agree with this order of things.  There was a time where the idea of a man leading me was unheard of and out of the question.  I threw out the verse about submission and argued that God did not mean that if the man is not this or that.  My distortion of the truth came from years and years ago.  In my childhood home, my father was the bread winner and my mom was the dominant boss.  I grew up knowing that it was whatever she said that carried the weight.  What did that cause?  Well I saw women as leaders and men as well workers.  His presence was missing in the home even though he came home every night.  I'm not endorsing being a door mat and allowing abuse to happen but in a home that is "normal" God has a plan.


We talked about keeping God as the head of the home because our spouses can never be Him. There is no way that we can be satisfied by our wives or husbands.  They will never be able to meet all our needs because of their humanity.  We seek to be healed, affirmed, desired, encouraged, engaged, and fully satisfied by the one we married. In truth that person can never ever give you everything that you need with abundance and overflow.  He or she cannot be God.  Until we realize that, the family will be in trouble.  Hurt and disappointment will fester and remain until broken pieces are all that remain.


We talked about how God says things to us to prevent us from hurting ourselves and others. He says do not engage in pre-marital sex not to be mean but to keep us safe.   I used myself as an example. I gave my body away and as a result, the man I will marry will not have a new gift to open in the form of me.  I suffered great pains when I was "dumped" because I was living like we were one without the covenant of marriage.


I had a son from unprotected sex that suffered from an absent father, a different last name than every one around him, self esteem issues as he grew older and looked less and less like my side of family.  He was estranged from his father, lived in a home without a male presence and struggled to find out how to be a man from a group of women. 


Chaos, the result of doing things outside of God's frame work and perfect plan for the family.