What’s the atmosphere like in your home? What’s it like at mealtimes? Do you gather together around your table? Talk and fellowship together? Open God’s Word and pray together? Do you do dishes and clean up the kitchen together? Or is Mom left with the mess and everyone goes their merry way?
I am aware that in many homes family meal times don’t happen together. Even if they do, mother is left doing dishes while children run off to do their own thing. You can’t run a home this way. Family life is togetherness. Family life means that everyone pulls their weight.
Dear mother, you are the one to make this happen. You don’t allow everyone to do their own thing. You gather the family together. You make the table and your meal so attractive and inviting that they’ll want to come to the table.
You think of subjects to discuss with your children at the table rather than sitting there with small talk that doesn’t interest anyone. And of course, you’ll never allow iPhones at the table! Have a basket where they drop them in as they come to the table. The table is the place to communicate together as a family. To look at one another and communicate face to face.
The table is a gathering place for the family. God planned it. The Bible picture of a family that that lives in God’s blessing is a family with the children all sitting around the table (Psalm 128:3). God loves the table because it is a place of communication. He wants to join you at your table. He wants to speak to you all as you open His Word at the end of the meal.
Dear mother, can I encourage you to make family times happen in your home? Don’t let your family dissipate into their own world and the world of social media while your family fragments away. When you plan and make things happen, it brings order. It establishes peace and harmony and drives out chaos.
Satan does not want family togetherness. He is intent on scattering the family in every direction. You must fight against every hindrance. You must push through and make it happen. But what blessed things will happen when you do.
When we get order and peace in family homes, we will begin to get order and peace in the nation.
I bless your home today in the name of Jesus.
Love from Nancy Campbell
Painting: Bayuskin Vasily Stepanovich (1898-1952) "Family"