Have A Family Plan? Series

What is marriage and the family? What am I doing to promote a better family? What effort am I investing to build my family? Is my family life just aimlessly drifting? We plan our meals more than we plan family times? You can’t build a very good building without blueprints? Is the family any different? Will we accidently build a good family?

Proverbs 18:22 Whoso findeth a wife findeth a good thing.

1 Peter 3:7 Giving honor unto the wife, as a weaker vessel.

I heard that the Sun and the Wind got into an argument as to which was the strongest. They decided on a contest to see their strength, and tell who was really the strongest. The Wind said, See that man walking down the road? The Sun said, Yes, the one with a coat on? The wind said, whoever can make that man take his coat off the soonest will be the winner. The Sun and Wind drew straws to see who would go first. The Wind drew the short straw and went first.

The Wind blew and the man kept on walking. The wind blew harder and almost knocked the man down, he kept walking. The Wind blew harder and harder, and the man pulled his coat together and walked faster. Finally the Wind said, I can’t seem to get his coat off.

The Sun said, I know I can get him to take his coat off. So, as the man walked downed the road, the Sun slowly warmed the man, one degree at a time. The man started sweating as he walked. After a while of slow, gradual warming, the man got so hot that he pulled off his coat and threw it over his shoulder. The change was so slow and gradual, but the coat came off.

The Wind said to the Sun, I am strong, but your plan was better than mine.

What kind of plan are we using to build strong families? Men don’t plan to fail, they fail to plan and thus failure goes before...

1. Don’t marry who you can live with, but rather marry who you cannot live without.

2. No two people agree on everything, unless one of them is dead. Agree to disagree gracefully.

3. A marriage that allows anger to accumulate is headed for hard times. Be ye angry and sin not: LET NOT THE SUN GO DOWN UPON YOUR WRATH. (Eph.. 4:26) Anger is a strong feeling of displeasure. Wrath is a long term anger. Wrath suggests a feeling of getting revenge. If you go to bed mad, you are playing with danger. To carry over anger into a new day is like hitting a bomb with a hammer.

4. One of the real killers of marriage is that we think the other person is responsible for our happiness or lack of it. Your happiness is, or sadness is, not because of what others do or don’t do, it is what you make out of it. There is very little security by trusting your happiness in the hands of another.

5. The only war where the enemies sleep together is marriage? This is a joke, that is not really funny. God made Eve to be a help mate.

Husbands are not the enemy? Wives are not the enemy? The enemy is the Devil, we misidentify who the enemy is and thus make a battle with a friend.

6. Few learn that in marriage, there must grow a creative use of conflict. Conflict is neither good or bad, conflict is neutral. It is how you handle conflict that inflicts great pain. Marriage need not be a battle field, but woe to the man that expects a bed of roses.

7. Attitude change --- Servant in love, Lord in marriage? Women act differently when they are dating, than after a few years of marriage. Men act differently and their words often become cutting swords. What would happen if in a marriage we treated each other as if we were dating? The man was driving down the road, his wife said, Honey we never sit close to each other any more? He looked at her on the other side of the car and replied, WHO MOVED?

8. There is nothing in life better than a loving, friendly, communion than marriage. Marriage must be more than physical attraction, there must be a soul tie. A good marriage takes three, a husband, a wife, and a Savior named Jesus Christ.

9. Many times marriage is like a bird dealing with it’s cage. Birds inside the cage seem to always want out, those outside the cage seem to want in? If you are unhappy dating, you will be unhappy married. If you cannot stand to be alone, you will not be able to stand be married.