I have thought much about home lately, and what it’s like to have a home. Other than my immediate family, I never had a true home while growing up. At least not in the sense others think of as home, where nurturing, discipline, spiritual training and love reside. I see many homes today as the two I saw. There are many who live this way now, as I did then. Handed off from one care taker to another, never having a feeling of belonging nor acceptance. Always moving.
We live in an increasingly selfish world. Parents seek their own pursuits and not those of the children God blessed them with. Buying all sorts of toys to compensate for failure of being in the home. I have seen and heard of children who are so confused as to what house they are to go at the end of their school day, they have to call and see which parent or step parent they are to be with on any given day. I see their eyes and know exactly how they are feeling. And if parents would look at the chaos they cause through divorce, and truly look into the eyes of their children who look to them for encouragement, love, nurturing, spiritual training, acceptance and provision of their needs, perhaps things would be different. The trouble with the nation is the trouble with the home as God designed.
The following excerpt expresses it best:
” . . . . . .But sometimes I look about me and in sorrow hang my head,
As I gaze on something sadder than the orphans of the dead.
For more pitiful and tragic as the sad days come and go,
Are the orphans of the parents they are not allowed to know.
They’re the orphans of the living, left alone to romp and play,
From their fathers and their mothers, by ambition shut away.
They have fathers who are busy and so weighted down with cares,
They haven’t time to listen to a little child’s affairs.
They have mothers who imagine, life could give them, if it would,
Something richer, something better than the joy of motherhood.
So their children learn from strangers, and by stranger’s hands are fed,
And the nurse for so much money, nightly tucks them into bed,
Lord, I would not grow so busy that I cannot drop my task,
To answer every question which that child of mine can ask.
Let me never serve ambition here so selfishly, I pray,
That I cannot stop to listen to the things my children say.
For whatever cares beset them, let them know I’m standing by,
I don’t want to make them orphans, til the day I come to die..” ~ Edgar Guest
Home is the pivoting point in which nations, states, communities and the church emanates. Without stability of the home, all of these falter. It is an immutable law. The home is the pillar of all the above, and as the parable of the wise man and the foolish man, are we building on the sand or the Rock?
“Therefore whosoever heareth these sayings of Mine, and doeth them, I will liken him unto a wise man, which built his house upon a rock: And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell not: for it was founded upon a rock. And everyone that heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them not, shall be likened unto a foolish man which built his house upon the sand: And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell: and great was the fall of it.” Matthew 27:24-27
“Except the Lord build the house, they labour in vain that build it: except the Lord keep the city the watchman waketh but in vain. It is vain for you to rise up early, to sit up late, to eat the bread of sorrows: for so He giveth His beloved sleep. Lo, children are an heritage of the Lord: and the fruit of the womb is His reward. As arrows are in the hand of a mighty man; so are children of the youth.” Psalms 127:1
Whatever we do in this life, affects someone. We affect our children when we create instability in the home. If there is a Godly nation built upon broken homes, I have not seen nor heard of it. If there is a faithful congregation built upon broken homes, I have never seen it either.
“As the home goes, so goes the nation.”
“As the home goes, so goes the church.”
It is my prayer parents will return to Scripture and build a strong foundation for their children. When we do things our way in the place of His way, we will surely fail as parents, as a nation and as the Lord’s church. The structure can be no stronger than the foundation.
“Does this darkness have a name? This cruelty, this hatred. How did it find us? Did it steal into our lives or did we seek it out and embrace it?
“What happened to us?
That we now send our children into the world like we send young men into war, hoping for their safe return. But knowing that some will be lost along the way.
“When did we lose our way?
Consumed by the shadows, swallowed whole by the darkness.
Does this darkness have a name? Is it your name? ~ Scott
Eileen Light