HEALTHY FAMILIES FOR ETERNITY

the larger circle outside. The spiritual welfare of
his family comes first.” 1 We cannot escape that
responsibility by trying to find the right spouse
who can then step into the family gap created by
our heavy leadership demands. While every leader
needs a committed and gifted spouse to help
shoulder the responsibilities of life, Ellen White
warns us here that no level of dedication to the
work of ministry can ever excuse the demise of
our families.
Ellen White also offers: “One well-ordered,
well-disciplined family tells more in behalf of
Christianity than all the sermons that can be
preached:’ 2 If that is true, and we believe it is,
then we must reexamine our family relationships
and do what must happen every time we confront
truth we are not practicing—alter our way to give
honor and glory to God.
To be sure, nothing will change unless we
shift the paradigm that informs the way we live.
Stephen R. Covey suggests “most people feel there’s
a real gap between what really matters most to
them—including family—and the way they live
their daily lives. 3 So the issue is not our extrinsic
lack of commitment but rather the absence of any
corresponding behavior that demonstrates that our
families are really a top priority to us.
The apostle Paul shares his struggles with not
following through with what he believes in, when
he states: “The good that I will to do, I do not do;
but the evil I will not to do, that I practice ...O
wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me
from this body of death? I thank God—through
Jesus Christ our Lord!” (Rom. 7:19-25, NKJV).
As Christian leaders like Paul, our advantage is
having full access to the power of God. We must
identify what needs to change about the way we
do family, then do whatever is necessary. But it
is not something we can do by ourselves. We
must be willing to avail ourselves of the help of a
professional Christian counselor—one of the gifts
of the Spirit God has given (1 Cor. 12:1-11) for
the edification of the church.
During our certification as facilitators of
Covey’s The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Families,
we learned that to reprioritize our families it is
necessary to employ the basic change model, also
known as the see, do, get model. Essentially, we
need to see things differently, in order to do things
differently, so that we can get a different result.
In short, we need to see our families as most
important, to do things that convey our regard for
and value of them, and then we will get stronger
and healthier family relationships.
If the counsel to have well-ordered, welldisciplined
families to accomplish more on
behalf of the gospel is really true, then we must
live our lives as leaders based on the values of
the kingdom of God. Paul reinforces the notion
in l Corinthians 10:31: “Whether you eat or
drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory
of God” (NKJV).
Unless we do more to be intentional about
connecting with our spouse and children every
day, our relationships will naturally drift toward
a state of alienation. And if that happens, we
will not be able to fulfill the leadership potential
God wants us to achieve.
A large body of marriage and family research
literature suggests that most relationships
experience distress because of a lack of effective
communication. If married people, and people
in general, learned to communicate better,
they would have much more understanding
between them and a basis for a stronger and
healthier relationship. 4
One of our favorite passages in the Bible
states: “A word fitly spoken is like apples of
gold in settings of silver “ (Prov. 25:11, NKJV).
The verse suggests that God wants us to use
words-that is, when we speak to our respective
families—as if giving a precious gift. There is
never a bad time to receive a gift of golden apples
in a frame of silver. If the words we employ
with our loved ones were as precious as the
gift mentioned above, their tone and message
would increase the regard and appreciation we
have for each other.
Mark and Debra Laaser suggest that we are
all born with seven basic desires that must be
met for us to feel fulfilled in life. The first desire
the Laasers propose is that of being heard and
LEADERSHIP RESOURCE
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THE LEADER’S FAMILY