Weekend Preview | Ideal Family – Part 1
By Matt Dawson
I LOVE that we are tackling this topic at Journey. This week we kick off the “Ideal Family Series!”
Is there even such a thing as an “ideal” family?
The reason I ask is because it seems like EVERYONE I know that is married, starting to have kids, or single parenting are looking for the IDEAL when it comes to their families!
They are looking for the answers to questions like these:
How do we keep the spark alive after the “honeymoon” year in marriage?
When’s the “right” time to have our 2nd kid? (there’s a perfect age difference…do you know what it is?)
What happens when you and your spouse switch ROLES (work, parenting, etc)?
How do I get my EX to agree to our new family arrangement?
Are my kids going to be screwed up because they don’t have a mother/father in their life?
And these are just a few of the questions people struggle with on their path to having an IDEAL Family.
I spent some time studying family models over the last week from Traditional to Modern and everything in-between – and to be honest, I have no idea if any of the models I’ve looked at are the IDEAL family!
So we then look to the BIBLE for examples and answers.
However, this is hard. Not much is mentioned about people’s family and what is shared is often all the ways they did it wrong. The bible is a tough place to look for several examples of healthy loving family units.
Who do you look to in scripture as a model of the ideal family?
Abraham’s parenting style (rejection of one son and tried to kill the other one)?
Solomon’s marriage (or marriages & concubines)?
King David’s sons…you know the ones that tried to kill him!
There are MORE examples of screwed up families (given in detail) in the scripture than GREAT examples for marriages, parenting, and all around family values.
So we’re going to spend the next few weeks tackling these questions. Is there such a thing as an “ideal” family? How do we make it happen? What roles we husbands/dads, wives/mothers, kids/siblings play in fostering the “ideal” family?
I look forward to seeing you on Sunday – it’s a great time to invite a friend to come with you!