Benny hadn’t thought much about what kind of a family he wanted or how he wanted his family to do. Family had just sort of happened for Benny. First, he met and married his wife. Then children came along, one after another, without any particular planning. Benny had no special vision for his children, either. The children did what they did and became who they were without Benny having any special hope, ambition, or expectation for them. But then one day the vision hit Benny that he could have a spectacular family, if he only wished. Benny had no idea the vision’s source. But when it came, it set him afire. And he went right to work guiding and blessing his family with new vigor.
Success
To have a good family life, have a good picture of family success. Achieving a goal is hard when you don’t know where the goal is or what it looks like. So, picture your family’s success. Your picture may be different from how things turn out. Chances are good that your family will succeed far beyond your imagination, in ways that you did not anticipate. Yet if you have no picture for success, your aim may not take you in a proper direction. You may not achieve much success at all unless you desire to achieve it. And desire needs a goal to motivate it. One way to picture success is to think of each of your family’s members and how you would like them to prosper. Prayer in that direction helps. A good family life isn’t about material things. A good family life is about family members flourishing. You know you have a good family life when you can look at your spouse, children, and other family members to see their health, joy, and good relationships. This chapter presents a picture for you to consider of family members, alongside your own picture of success.
Spouse
You must have had the sense from time to time, and you’d hope continuously, of just how extraordinarily special, utterly unique, and deeply cherished your spouse is. That’s not to say that spouses don’t have flaws. We all do. That’s also not to say that spouses don’t have bad days. Again, we all do. And of course, tensions and disagreements exist in any marriage. But you’ve also likely had the sense of how those periodic or rare marital conflicts only heighten the exquisitely delicate, poignant, and precious nature of your spouse. Family success accentuates that gorgeous character of your spouse. The more that you can see your spouse’s special character in action and on display in your family life, the more you are seeing a picture of family success. The display of your spouse’s best attributes may take different shapes, from courage, strength, creativity, and boldness, even fierceness and passion, to delicacy, sensitivity, discernment, peace, and patience. Constancy may be your spouse’s rare adornment, or instead a readiness to jump into just the right action. Your spouse may be wonderfully relational or marvelously intellectual, or have any other special gift. Whatever your spouse’s gifts, talents, and best qualities are, your family succeeds when they are most consistently on display. This whole guide has been about what it takes to get and keep your spouse in that beautiful frame of family success.
Children
You must also have had the sense from time to time of just how precious and exquisite your children are, each in their own unique way. As in the case of your spouse, your children are also flawed, as we are all flawed. And as in the case of your spouse, you must at times experience frustration, embarrassment, and even discouragement over, and conflict with, your children. Yet also as in the case of your spouse, those times of disappointment and conflict must only heighten how precious you hold your children. Indeed, you would have no conflict with them if not for the high regard in which you hold them. A parent only disciplines their own child, not the neighbor’s scoundrel kid. You should see in your children their great appetite for life, the great capacity they hold within themselves to grow into men and women of honor and good character, and the great hope they hold for forming and leading their own families. You should see in their activities and creations how they, too, can shape the world into its better patterns, as you and your spouse strive to do. When you see these attributes in your children consistently on display, you have a grand picture of family success. Families exist to foster their children’s future.
Grandchildren
You and your spouse may also have a picture in mind for your grandchildren, whether you have had the blessing of grandchildren yet or not. Children are so immediate to parents that parents tend to see their particular qualities, hopes, and needs. By contrast, grandchildren are just distant enough in generation and location that grandparents don’t see their particularities as much as their whole. When you look at your grandchild, you see the grandchild’s future more than the grandchild’s present. You see how the grandchild will both turn out to be like the grandchild’s mother and father, your child and your child’s spouse, yet also just enough unlike them to be their own unique individual. You should also see yourself and your spouse in your grandchild, but again just far enough removed that in that sight, you also see your family line’s future. Indeed, in a grandchild you see both your family’s future and its past. When your family has produced grandchildren with substantial hope and of good character, and has ensured steady care and abundant love for those grandchildren, you see a wonderful picture of your family’s success.
Parents
You and your spouse can also see a picture of family success in your parents and parents-in-law. You and your spouse have your own family together, apart from the families you left to marry one another. Yet your family with your spouse is the product of the love and care your parents and parents-in-law have shown you and your spouse through their own families. You and your spouse know well that your parents and parents-in-law look at the two of you making your family together, as you and your spouse will look at your own children as they mature, marry, and form their own families. And so, when you look at your parents and parents-in-law, you surely hope to see that you and your spouse have blessed them. You hope to see that they are proud, that they have close and supportive relationships with you and your spouse, and with your children, their grandchildren. You hope to see warmth, admiration, appreciation, and love. If you can see these things in your parents and parents-in-law, then you have a clear picture of your own family’s success.
Grandparents
You and your spouse can also see a picture of your family’s success in the memory of your grandparents. Your spouse and your family may have had only a brief time to enjoy your grandparents before their passing, if any such time. Yet you likely hold memories of your grandparents and how they loved you and your parents. Your spouse likely has similar memories of your spouse’s grandparents and how they loved your spouse and your spouse’s parents. You and your spouse carry those memories into your own family. Your family honors your grandparents by showing similar love of the sort that makes your parents and parents-in-law able to appreciate their own grandchildren, your children. Your family’s success lies not only in what you and your spouse do to honor your parents but also to honor your grandparents, just as you and your wife will be or are already grandparents, hoping to see your grandchildren carry on that legacy of love and care into their own families.
You
You can also see a picture of your family’s success in your own condition. You have poured yourself into your family life with the hope and desire to see your family members blessed. If your family members have received that blessing, even through their struggles and with their own flaws, then you have your reward. You should draw substantial assurance from seeing your family blessed. Your own confidence that your family life was worth the pursuit that you gave it is a reliable measure of your family’s success. If you can look around at your family and the character and circumstances of each of its members, and draw reasonable assurance of their perseverance, good character, and blessing, then you have every reason to celebrate your own success as a measure of your family’s success. Your spouse and children want you, too, to prosper in your soul and spirit, and to receive your own blessing. Pursue that confidence until you achieve it. Family success is worth your ultimate sacrifice, in honor of the ultimate sacrifice given for you.
Faith
The greatest picture of family success, though, is to have the confidence that your family members are joining you in the eternal kingdom. Your earthly family life is only a prelude to your eternal family life, if you have the humility and wisdom to embrace it. If you can look at each family member and see the seed of faith within them, and hear them respect, love, and embrace the Lord Jesus Christ, then you need no greater assurance of your family’s ultimate victory. Your family life on earth may have presented more challenges than you felt you were up to meeting. You may have experienced more family failures than family victories. But success isn’t truly a matter of counting wins against losses. Instead, your family members have one great win that overcomes all failures, as many and deep as those failures may be. Your own acceptance of the Lord’s merciful and expensive rescue assures that you will see your faithful family members in heaven, both those whom you never knew who came before you and those whom you will never see on earth who come after you. Assure yourself of that victory, fully within your reach. But also devote yourself and your family to assuring every other family member, friend, and acquaintance of that same victory. That, my friend, is success.
Reflection
What picture do you and your spouse have of your family success? Have you discussed what you hope and hold forth for your family? Would doing so encourage or guide you to better decisions and actions? Is your spouse flourishing in your family, no matter your spouse’s struggles? How can you help your spouse display more of your spouse’s best character within your family? Are your children reaching for their best futures, under the care of your family? Can you make changes that would help them do so more fully and confidently? Can you see yourself and your spouse in your grandchildren, if you have grandchildren? What hope do you hold for your grandchildren? Are your parents proud of your family, or if they have already passed away, were they proud before their passing? What would your grandparents think of your family? Can you see their hopes expressed in your family? How assured are you of your family member’s faith? Do you need to do something, say something, or pray something to have greater assurance?
Key Points
Having a picture of your family’s success can motivate your pursuit.
Seeing your spouse’s best character on display is family success.
Seeing your children growing and grasping for their futures is success.
Seeing the hope and capacity of your grandchildren is family success.
Making your parents pleased and proud of your family is success.
Seeing the success of your grandparents in your own family is success.
Your own success lies in seeing the hope of your own family realized.
The greatest family success is your assurance of family member faith.