HOME

 

Turn Your Heart Towards Home - By Robert Dean Steel

Pastor of Cornerstone Pentecostal Fellowship

 

            Home is a wonderful thing.  It conjures up so many difference images. 

To some it is a nice two story cape cod home with a white picket fence and

a porch swing.  For others it is a family sitting around a table eating, laughing

and enjoying each others company.  This article is going to be the comments

of three famous people on the home.

            Billy Graham wrote, "On the average three and a half marriages out of

six in North America end in the divorce courts.  Seven hundred and fifty thousand

children become half orphans yearly because of broken homes, some total

orphans.  Said a national psychiatrist: There is little or no happiness in ninety

per cent of North American homes."  Many homes have become war zones and children are growing up thinking that anger and manipulation are ways of getting their way.  I have also been surprised about how normal it has become for children to spend their time bouncing between homes and families.  One young lady I talk too said, she spent two weeks a month with dad and the same with Mom.  I asked her how she felt about it and she said, “It is the way it is, even thought I don’t like it.”  I then asked her if she wanted to spend her life with one life partner too which she said resoundingly, “Yes,” I then asked, “why?  She responded by saying, “I never want to put my kids through what I have had to go through.”  I think that sums it up nicely.

            Eighty per cent of our criminals come from broken an unsympathetic

homes.  Our nation is sadly in need of the rebirth of a simple life.  A return to

the days when God was part of each household, when families arose in the

morning with a prayer on their lips and ended the day by gathering to place

themselves in His care.

            If there is any hope or future for our nation or others.  If there is to be

any peace and happiness in our homes, then we as a nation must turn to God

and the practice of daily family prayer.  J Edgar Hoover.

            Rev. Albert S. Taylor wrote, "One per cent of the child's time is spent

under the influence of a Sunday School, 7 per cent under the influence of the

public school and 92 per cent under the influence of the home."  This tells us that our influence is important.  What are we saying to our children and how are we influencing them for good? 

            James Dobson coined a phrase over 20 years ago, "Turn your heart

towards home."  Home is what you make it.  It takes work, creativity, wisdom

and insight to make a good home.  It means taking the resources available to

you and applying them.  It takes commitment on the part of all the participants

and it means being willing to forgive and forget.  Home is a great place for

safety and security.  Make God the center of your home and you will have a

home that will stand the test of the changing winds of society and be an anchor

and example for others around you.  I remember one time a person came to me

and said, "You know Dean, I have look at your family and have come to the

conclusion that if you can make it as weird as you are, I can."  The truth is my

wife and I have a pure and simply relationship.  She's pure and I'm simply.

Works for me.  Have a great week.