Our series on "Helping Your Family Grow" comes to an end this week. Today we turn our attention to suggestions we hope you will find practical and helpful. We need to always remember that we are engaged in spiritual warfare. Unfortunately, the battle is often fought within our families. We need all the help we can get. We don't have the last word on the subject, but maybe we can help you get your thinking moved in the right direction.

We wish we knew the name of the person who wrote our guest article. Her approach to marriage improvement is both sound and practical. Of course, there's no guarantee that your spouse will respond as her husband did, but that's not an excuse to withhold love. We will be better people for having put forth the effort to love. We can't control the response of our mates. There may be some spouses who will react negatively to love, but in most cases marriages will be improved if we will initiate a pattern of unilateral love. As Michelle Weiner-Davis says in her book, Divorce Busting, "It takes one to tango."

Norman and Ann

by Norman and Ann Bales

In previous parts of the series we have discussed hindrances to family spiritual growth and sought to establish some guidelines to determine how spiritual growth needs to take place. In this last installment, we focus on some positive suggestions to help spiritual growth become a reality in your family.

• Give Every Family Member Undivided Attention

  It's important to do that because every family member needs to feel important and all family members need to know they are loved. Quite often when children misbehave, it is done in an attempt to be noticed. We have a tendency to think that the desire to be noticed is bad. "Johnny just wants to show off or act out." Johnny's behavior does not necessarily stem from evil intent. Johnny's attempt to attract attention may well be inappropriate, but he may be thinking that it is better to get negative attention than no attention at all.

  The desire for attention is not necessarily sinful. In Paul's discussion of spiritual gifts in 1 Corinthians 12, he honored the principle of giving attention to members of the body, especially those members that we think "less honorable." (1 Corinthians 12:22).

  In his book, Family is Still a Great Idea, Norman Wright tells the story of Scott Hamilton's relationship with his mother. Scott said, "The first time I skated in the U.S. Nationals, I fell five times. My mother gave me a big hug and said, 'It's only your first National. It's no big deal." My mother always let me be me. Three years later, I won my first National. She never said, 'You can do better' or 'Shape up.' She just encouraged me."

  If your child knows that he or she is important in your sight, it will help you to communicate the message that your child is precious in God's sight. If we leave the impression that we don't have time to give individual attention to our children, they may get the idea that God doesn't have time for them either.

• Give unconditional acceptance

  As Christians we have received favored treatment from God that we did not deserve (Romans 5:8). God did not base his love for us on our ability to measure up to his ideals. He loves us despite the fact that we don't. Paul put it this way, "While we were still sinners Christ died for us." (Romans 5:8). How can we withhold love from our family members when they don't measure up?

  We are not advocating permissiveness, overlooking sin or avoidance of accountability. Sometimes we may have to say, "I hate what you're doing, but I love you." And yes, it is possible to do that because we do it with ourselves all the time. Our children must hear us say, "You have value and worth because you are my child and not because of your performance." Children live in a world of peer rejection. Sometimes they feel defeated in a competitive world. Home must be the one place where they feel acceptance regardless. They must not hear "I'll love you when, or I'll love you if" from the lips of their parents.

• Encourage one another

  We have a Biblical mandate to treat our fellow Christians this way (Romans 12:8; 1 Thessalonians 4:18; 5:11; Hebrews 10:25). If it is important to encourage our brothers and sisters in the church, isn't it also important to encourage our family members, especially our children?

  We normally perform better with encouragement than we do with criticism. Imagine an aging baseball player. He's had a great career and he still has some strength left, but he's lost a step or two. Nobody wants him to play in the outfield anymore because he can't chase down fly balls. An American League picks him up on waivers and plays him as a designated hitter. During the first part of the season, he's in a slump. The manager is all over him. "You're not worth the enormous salary the team is paying you. You're washed up. You're not making contact with the ball anymore. You don't have the muscle tone you used to have. Why don't you just announce your retirement and hang it up?" Chances are the ball player will continue to perform poorly. Let's suppose the team changes managers at mid season. The new manager sees something the old manager didn't see. He sees a man who still has ability, but who is so discouraged that he doubts his ability. He takes the player aside and says, "Look, I know it doesn't come as easy as it did before, but you've still got a power swing. You can win some ball games for us. I've been watching you and I've noticed that you're not meeting the ball with a level swing and that's why you're popping up so much. Just relax, take it easy, keep your eye on the ball, and take a good solid cut at a good pitch." I can guarantee you that the old ball player will perform better for the second manager than he did for the first manager. The same thing will work with your child.

  We need to learn to concentrate on praising our children for the things they do right. Our friend, Willard Tate says we need to praise them when they do something "nearly right."

• Make Your Own Spiritual Growth a Matter of Priority

  No matter how much we may want our children to rise above our own level of spiritual development, it is unlikely that they will draw close to God if that hasn't been a priority with us. There's an old saying that "acorns don't fall far from the tree." If we expect our families to grow spiritually, we need to be in a spiritual growth mode ourselves.

  Norman felt blessed by his own father's example in that respect. He was not without faults and Norman was keenly aware of most of them, but his Dad had a heart for spiritual things. He often saw him study the scriptures way into the night even when he had to get up early and go to work the next day. In one of Norman's last visits with him prior to the time his Dad suffered a stroke and became unable to communicate verbally, he reviewed his life. He felt good about having a house that was paid for, having had the strength and the skill to hold good jobs, having sent Norman to college. He paused and said, "But in the end, your faith is the only thing that counts." That's part of Norman's legacy from his father and with that legacy, many of his Dad's shortcomings are shoved to the background.

  Our walk with Christ will always be flawed because we live in the flesh, but when both father and mother make it their priority to make Jesus the priority in their lives, children will learn from what they see. What they see will provide the most powerful influence in their lives.

• Positive discipline

  It should be pointed out, however, that example alone is not enough. Eli and Samuel both set powerful examples but their failure to exercise discipline resulted in poor behavior among their sons. Solomon said, " . . . the corrections of discipline are the way to life" (Proverbs 6:23). "The foundation of all discipline is love. Any discipline, no matter how mild, is out of order if it is not obvious to the child that both parents love him deeply. It is almost impossible for loving parents to over-discipline! Love disciplines only for the child's benefit, never because of the parents' impatience, resentment or selfishness." (Faulkner. What Every Family Needs.) Discipline is not always appreciated at the time it is administered, but in the end we come to realize the truth that there is no love without discipline. See Hebrews 12:7-11.

  CONCLUSION

  Families need God. We all know families who seem to function quite well without making a relationship to God one of their high priorities, but they would undoubtedly function much better if Christ were at the center of their family. Families function better in this life when they have a heightened awareness of the spiritual dimension of life. Of course they have no future in the next life without a proper relationship to God. Even though we live in an environment that is frequently hostile to spiritual ideals, families can still grow spiritually with deliberate planning and total dependence on God.

  (end of series)

I married to get away from home. Yet today, 23 years later, I have a happy marriage. Let me share my solution with you.

At first it was pretty bad. My husband's every action was inconsiderate - or at least I thought so. How is an unloved person supposed to act? I gave much thought to the word "love." Would God expect us to love one another if it is not in our power to do so, or if so will He enable us?

One day I began to realize what God could do for me. I finally faced the fact that I might not feel loved, but why could I not show love to others? From that moment on I began to behave as if I did feel loved. "What will I do for my husband today?" I asked myself. I began doing little kindnesses. I studied his likes and dislikes and bought treats for his lunch box. I tried to comfort him when he came home tired and harassed. I met him at the door with a smile. I respected his discipline of the children and worked with him. I tried to speak softly and diplomatically when we had a difference.

He began behaving as though he were living with someone who loved him. And I began to notice a change in my own feeling. He was not at all like I had concluded. He had real depth. And I began to feel a new kind of love for him.

Is that why God admonished us to show love? He had not said to show love if we have love, had he? At the time it seemed that Christians did all the giving and none of the getting. But when I began to obey God by showing love, it was really I who benefited.

Only this week my teenage son said, "All of my friends say that I have it good."

"Why?" I asked.

"Because you and Dad really like each other," he said. "You would be surprised how many parents don't get along too hot."

So, my answer to people who are stuck in a marriage that is loveless is, show love.