Path to fulfilment in the family – Part 1

Many families are battling with tough challenges, some very severe. Because they are ignorant of the solution to the challenges they face, many prolong their pain and suffering. As it turns out, the key to solving family problems is to fear God. The psalmist describes a family that fears the Lord, and enumerates what it enjoys. He says such a family is free from worry and anxiety, problem and oppression, captivity and calamity, disease and death, familiar spirits and famine, hostility and hatred, iniquity and infirmity.

When God raises a family and decides to pour the blessing of freedom on it, what a great privilege that is! When God smiles on an individual and lifts the countenance of His blessing on him; and when God has His favour and promise upon an individual and a family as in the psalm we are examining today which begins with blessedness, what a privilege that is! When the psalmist declares, “Blessed is every one that feareth the LORD”, he leaves the decision for everyone to be candidate for the blessings that follow: all the blessings mentioned in the chapter are for those who fear the Lord and come under His control.

Upon those who know the Lord, who believe in Him, who love Him, who obey His word, there are great blessings as individuals, as families and the works of their hands. However, there is need for proper explanation and elaboration of what it means to be free as a family. Such deeper investigations are as important and necessary as doctors’ medical examination and diagnosis before prescription to their patients.

What are the problems families are wrestling with? When a family member has a spirit of infirmity for a long time, the implication is that he or she becomes the centre of attention rather than centre of activity. And instead of providing for the needs of members of the family, the family finance is channelled into taking care of that person’s health because health is a priority. Also, when forces of darkness are battling with a family in unrelenting attacks to the extent that there is a “gall of bitterness” in the family and a brick-wall of resistance against the family, there is a burden of bondage in the family. This might lead to difficulty having children.

Sometimes, it is unequal yoke or partnership with those that do not know God. It is often caused by impatience in the choices people have made in life, with their attendant consequences. Others include the burden of polygamy and backsliding. These burdens further lead to hypertension, restlessness, worry and anxiety, guilt and condemnation, sexually transmitted diseases and even death and eternity in hell, if there is no repentance from sin by such persons.

There are cases where the spouses agree to go astray together as in the case of Ananias and Sapphira. They died in sin without repentance. Husbands and wives who conspire to sin against God bring judgment upon themselves and their families except they repent. Other things that bring burdens upon individuals and families include: (a) adultery, (b) backsliding, (c) contention, (d) debt, (e) envy and jealousy, (f) familiar spirits, (g) guile – deception, (h) hatred, (i) idolatry, (j) joblessness, (k) knocking and nagging of one another, (l) lust and licentiousness, (m) money, (n) naughtiness, (o) oppression, (p) principalities and powers, (q) quarrelling, (r) retaliation and revenge, (s) sickness, (t) tongue, (u) unbelief, (v) violence, (w) worldliness, (y) yokes.

Further Reading (King James Version): Psalm 128:1-6; 144:11-15. Luke 13:16; Acts 8:23; Hebrews 12:15,16; Nehemiah 13:23,24,26; Jeremiah 8:4-6,9-12; Acts 5:1-10; Hebrews 13:4.