Forming Family Values

Forming Family Values

Which way is your Deck Chair Facing?

There’s something about the cartoon strip, "Peanuts" that can evoke a chuckle while simultaneously piercing our conscience. That’s what happened to me when I discovered a profound message in one of Charles Schultz’s comic strips.

Charlie Brown was sitting in a deck chair near the front of a large boat when Lucy walked up. "Some people go through life with the deck chairs facing forward, gazing out where they are going," Lucy said philosophically. "Others go through life with their deck chair facing backwards, looking at where they’ve been."

She then paused and pondered her profound words. Looking directly into Charlie Brown’s sunglasses she asked him, "Charlie Brown, which way is your deck chair facing?"

Charlie Brown responded simply, "I really don’t know—I’ve never been able to get my deck chair unfolded!"

When it comes to figuring out your Family Values it can seem just about as confusing. Still, the direction the deck chair faces is very important – toward God or away from God? Your Family Values are being formed – Today I want to help you build values that reflect Godly influence. It isn’t going to be easy – but its not impossible if you understand what you face and what you must do.

Hanging By a Thread by David Boehl

We face a real challenge. About a generation ago the demographic group known as the Baby Boomers started an experiment in life. This experiment was based on new and different values. They broke from “traditional” values and they were based on new ideas and new freedoms which have been promoted, pushed, and hyped with unrelenting enthusiasm and energy.
Politicians, educators, lawyers, doctors, business executives, Hollywood filmmakers, book publishers, newspaper and magazine editors, perhaps even some key religious leaders, have all been engaged in selling us these new values.

David Boehl in an article called “Hanging by a Thread” enumerates these values in seven statements:

1. Personal happiness the main goal
Personal happiness, fulfillment, and independence are the highest goals for any person.

2. Marriage for life old-fashioned
The idea of marrying someone for life is old-fashioned.
Divorce is not harmful, but should be encouraged if couples are not compatible. We should not worry about how divorce affects children; they have a remarkable ability to adapt to hardship.

3. Traditional roles are confining and outdated
Women should be encouraged to pursue careers and personal fulfillment, and it is unfair to view men as leaders of their homes.

4. Teenagers should make their own choices
Parents should be encouraged to begin ’letting go’ of their children as they begin adolescence. Then these teenagers can began to make their own, independent choices.

5. There is no such thing as absolute morality
We encourage each individual to experience sexual freedom by setting aside biblical morals regarding premarital sex, extramarital sex, and homosexuality. We must embrace tolerance for any lifestyle an individual chooses.

6. Question all authority at every opportunity

7. The influence of Christianity should be eliminated from public life

Reaping the Whirlwind

7 “They sow the wind and reap the whirlwind.”
Hosea 8:7

There is nothing all that new with these values and ideas. Hosea preached about the