Miron Ministries » Relationships » God's Family Plan

God's Family Plan

Html View | View PDF | Print View
by: Dr. Sharon Schuetz Total views: 15 Word Count: 600 Date: Tue, 23 Dec 2008 Time: 2:25 AM 47 comments

Did you know that marriage is the only relationship in Scripture where two people become one? Marriage illustrates the Trinity's triune connection. Three separate Individuals with different identities and roles, agree as one, in perfect harmony. God tells us to leave our father and mother, cleave together, and become one (Gen. 2:24). Like the Trinity, we must develop oneness of spirit.

Though we love our parents, we grow up; marry, move away, and start new families. Eventually, our children will leave and start families of their own. Couples are together long after the children are grown, so we should make our marriage our priority.

Cotten Mather wrote, "Well ordered families naturally produce a good order in society." God's purpose for a healthy marriage is to produce healthy families. Healthy families produce a healthy society. Marriage blends two people from different backgrounds and families, with different customs, traditions, and methods of communicating, into one. This will naturally cause conflict. Newlyweds are often like two porcupines trying to hug; the closer they get, the more they hurt one another.

By understanding a few important relationship principles, we can find new ways to handle conflict. After we're married, we can't react to anger and disappointment as we did before. Learning to disagree without disagreement is important to any family. Ideally, most couples should build their relationship before having children, to give them time to develop healthy methods of conflict resolution.

I'm from a large family with six screaming kids. My husband, Michael, was the oldest of three bookworms. We were married two months when we had our first blow up. We were outside when he made me angry. I started screaming. He simply said, "Woman, when you can carry on an intelligent conversation, I'll be in the house." With that, he sauntered inside and closed the door. I was speechless. This changed my life by forcing me to learn healthy conflict resolution.

Occasional disagreement is normal in marriage. How we treat one another during conflict seriously affects our relationship. We must focus on what we disagree on instead of throwing up past failures or using harsh, cutting words that wound. We need to find a solution, not win an argument. If we want to fight to win, we should take up boxing. If we want to build a healthy family, we should concentrate on what's best for the relationship and set aside our own agendas.

Our family is to have a positive influence on our community. We are God's testimony to a lost world. People observe how we interact with, and speak to one another. They see our children's demonstrations of love and it makes them wonder what makes our family different from other families. What better opportunity to share God's love and draw them into His kingdom? When we build our family using God's relationship principles, we will have achieved His purpose, and we will find our place in His plan for our lives and for our family.