How to make your family great

Recently God impressed on my heart to be reading Psalm 112 over my family. A psalm that declares what a prosperous generation looks like. As a mom, I long to know that my children will not only know Jesus all the days of their lives, but that they would choose to live lives that will ultimately be blessed and show the world the love of God. My prayer..  What if we could be this family? What if we could influence the world around us by just being who we are called to be? Here is an example of what I pray.

As we raise our children in the love and admonishment of the Father, I know he calls us become this influence in a world that needs an encounter with His love. I want my kids to be fearless, successful, and honored. Not in a prideful, arrogant way, but in a way they people will truly want to have what they have. After all, success is not determined just by our bank account, but what we do with what we have been given and how we increase. Jesus is what we have been given, therefore love should resonate from us.

Psalms 112

Praise the Lord!

How joyful are those who fear the Lord

and delight in obeying his commands.

Their children will be successful everywhere;

an entire generation of godly people will be blessed.

They themselves will be wealthy,

and their good deeds will last forever.

Light shines in the darkness for the godly.

They are generous, compassionate, and righteous.

Good comes to those who lend money generously

and conduct their business fairly.

Such people will not be overcome by evil.

Those who are righteous will be long remembered.

 They do not fear bad news;

they confidently trust the Lord to care for them.

 They are confident and fearless

and can face their foes triumphantly.

They share freely and give generously to those in need.

Their good deeds will be remembered forever.

They will have influence and honor.

The wicked will see this and be infuriated.

They will grind their teeth in anger;

they will slink away, their hopes thwarted.

We are this family! 

This Psalms that I have read over and over, it rang true to me when I read it again this past summer. If I want my family to be successful and want them to be great in the land, then we need to act, believe, and speak these words as if my family was already living this out in our lives. I do want my kids to be successful in their school, careers, married life, etc. I want them to be strong and courageous like Joshua who wasn’t afraid to take the promise land without fear. I want them to declare God is sovereign like David defeating Goliath. I want them to not be willing to back down even when it means being thrown into a fiery furnace. I want them to be able to kneel, shout, or raise holy hands when they entered the goal line or accomplished their one of their dreams. I want them to be generous, and lend always. I want them to always remember who God is and what He has done for them. To have an amazing, blessed, whole, and abundant life!

One translation says, “A generosity that goes on, and on, and on. An honored life! A beautiful life!” (The Message).

What a great family life. What a family that says, “We aren’t perfect, but our heart is to produce love in our lives that it shows, in how we serve, how we love, and how we become. In all of our mess ups, we don’t look at those as failures, we look at them as growing into what we already are in the eyes of the Father.

One of my biggest pet peeves is that we judge each other so quickly because we fall short of our own standard. We are not held to our standard; we are held to Christ’s standard. That is what grace is for. I may fall, but I get back up. Same with you and so should it be the same with our children.

I encourage you to read this Psalms over again. I encourage you to find the verse that sticks out to you the most and read it over your family. I encourage you to start seeing your family as the family in this psalm. Change the view of your family to the view of the Father.

This is how you make your family great!

Be Blessed.