Body: | 4 Key Words To A Happy Home!
The home should be the happiest spot we can ever know on earth. In it we
have the very closest and dearest relationships, and it can be the constant
source of strength and inspiration. But to create and preserve the
happiness of the home requires certain qualities and attitudes which may be
designated by four key words.
The first and most important of these is LOVE.
Ideally it is an unselfish love that brings a man and woman together to
form a home, and ideally, it is love which increases that happiness of the
home with children. The love which binds a family together is partly an
impulse of nature, but in the Christian home, it is far more unselfish than
a mere natural impulse. In Ephesians 5:25-31, the Apostle Paul says,
"husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church and gave
himself up for it; that he might sanctify it, having cleansed it by the
washing of water with the word, that he might present the church to himself
a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but it
should be holy and without blemish. Even so ought husbands to love their
own wives as their own bodies. He that loveth his own wife loveth himself:
for no man ever hated his own flesh, but nourisheth it and cherished it,
even as Christ also the church . . . For this cause shall a man leave his
father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife; and the two shall become
one flesh". This kind of love would lead a man to sacrifice his own
pleasures, even his life, to assure the happiness and welfare of his wife.
And who can doubt that the same unselfish love which a man should have for
his wife, the wife should also have for her husband, and the parents should
have for their children.
Unfortunately, however, love can wither and die. To keep it alive and warm
requires close association, attention and care. When parents both work and
have little time for their children, they become in a measure strangers to
them. By nature, children love their parents and long for their parent's
love in return. Two teenagers, whose parents after work and the evening
meal usually sat glued to the television till bed time, have testified that
they felt so frustrated and bitter that they even wanted to put a bomb
under the TV; yet they could not tell their parents how they felt. Warm
personal love which expresses itself in affectionate association, care, and
attention prevents such estrangement's and bitterness, and is the single
greatest source of happiness in the home. No amount of money, fast cars,
gifts, and gadgets can substitute for it.
The second key word to happiness is FAITH:
Faith, in all its aspects trust, confidence, reliance brings happiness. If
a home is to be happy parents must conduct themselves in such a way that
they can have implicit faith in each other and inspire such faith also in
their children. The basis of such mutual trust, however, is a faith in God
and in all the attributes we associate with Him truth, integrity, fairness,
compassion, mercy. If parents by their lives show their loyalty to God and
his nature, they instinctively win the confidence of their children, and
children likewise hold the confidence of their parents. They believe in one
another.
The third key word to happiness is SELF-DISCIPLINE:
Self-discipline is acquired only gradually and sometimes painfully through
external discipline. A generation ago we entered the age of permissiveness,
when children were allowed to make their own decisions, do their own thing.
Today psychiatrists are almost universally agreed that instead of making
children happier, this permissiveness has been a tragedy for both children
and parents. It has led to drinking, drug abuse, crime, broken homes, and
an alarming increase in teen-age suicides. Until children reach enough
maturity in judgement and character to administer self-discipline, they
must be guided by their parents. In Ephesians 6:1-3, the Apostle Paul says,
"Children obey your parents in the Lord: for this is right. Honor thy
father and thy mother (which is the first commandment with promise) that it
may be well with thee, and that thou mayest live long on the earth".
Obedience implies definite restrictions. Parents must emphasize with
children that some things are right and some things are wrong, and must see
that their children observe the limitations. But when instruction fails and
discipline seems necessary, it must never be done through frustration or
anger, but always with love. The apostle says in Ephesians 6:4, that
-fathers are not to provoke their children to wrath, but nurture them in
the chastening and admonition of the Lord. If this is done right, children
actually love and respect their parents more, for they realize their
parents love them enough to worry over and correct them. As the writer of
Hebrews says in Chapter 12:9, our fathers chastised us, and instead of
being estranged we "gave them reverence". Thus, chastening one in the right
way may for the moment seem "grievous", yet the writer says it "yields
peaceable fruit to them that have been exercised" by it (Chapter 12, verse
11).
The fourth, key word to happiness is RESPONSIBILITY:
Responsibility grows naturally out of the first three. If a home is filled
with love, with mutual confidence and trust, and has had the guidance and
correction necessary to develop self-discipline, the natural result is a
recognition of responsibility. Each member of the family feels a
responsibility to the others, a responsibility to merit confidence and
truth, a responsibility to keep one's promises, to carry out duties and
assignments. As this sense of responsibility becomes a habit, it carries
over to those outside the family, to employers, associates, and friends.
When the members of a family have little or no confidence in each other,
when they can seldom depend on their doing what they are supposed to do,
you have the making of inevitable unhappiness and tragedy. But when the
members of a family have full confidence in each other, and when through
self-discipline they have formed the habit of responsibility, you have the
sure foundation, not only of a happy family, but of successful lives.
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