Frontier Family Counsel by Stephen Bly and Podcast

One-Word Rules For a Modern Frontier Family

Are you part of a frontier family? For those who live on the spiritual frontier, we’re all pilgrims and pioneers. We’re pushing through this life to get someplace else. I’m a simple man. Here’s a plain and practical approach for navigating a frontier family today.

For Christian fathers, husbands, and men along the trail: work!

“If anyone does not provide for his relatives, especially his immediate family, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever” (1 Timothy 5:8).

I’m thankful I grew up in the West on a ranch. Work was a necessity for the whole family. I learned to work at a young age. This ability is a special God-given gift. Everyone can be an expert at something. I hate to brag, but I’m especially good at shoveling mud. Learned it on the farm. That’s a task I could do all day long. I aimed to make the straightest irrigation rows possible. But that’s a hidden job that hardly anyone sees and few care about. Yet it mattered to me and my dad. And to the Lord.

“All you do, do unto the Lord, not for men” (Colossians 3:23).

We can retire from a career, but we never really retire from work. Caleb didn’t look for an easy life. He depended on God fulfilling His promises in the land he traveled to. He wanted them accomplished not only for himself, but for his family and descendants and the whole tribe. (See Joshua 14:10)

Teach the next generation to work. Even Jesus learned to be a carpenter from his earthly dad, Joseph (Mark 6:2&3).

Image by Sasin Tipchai from Pixabay

The main goal for a frontier family woman: to love!

“Put on love, which binds (the virtues) all together in perfect unity” (Colossians 3:14).

Love gently. “We were gentle among you like a mother caring for her little children” (1 Thessalonians 2:7). To love gently means knowing the right and wrong time and way to be angry.

Love deeply. “Above all, love deeply because love covers a multitude of sins” (1 Peter 4:8). We can overlook some faults to affirm strengths. Love says, “You’re important whether you’re perfect or a failure.”

Love others. “She opens her arms to the poor and extends hands to the needy” (Proverbs 31:20). Compassion is most often learned from the women in our lives.

And teach children to love by encouragement and example.

Kids in a Frontier Family should play!

They need to giggle and explore and have lots of fun. And teach their parents and grandparents how to play again. Relax and catch snowflakes on your tongue.

And the word for older children: obey!

“Obey your parents in everything, for this pleases the Lord” (Colossians 3:20).

Kids, as well as the rest of us, don’t like that word obey too well. We believe it signifies taking away something wonderful and cool we want to do.

Reminds me of a sign at a tourist stop on the south rim of the Grand Canyon. “Do no go past this guardrail,” it says. On the other side drops a 3,000 foot incline to the Colorado River. To obey means to live behind the safety of the guardrail. The most cool, confident kids don’t shrink back before their peers in obeying their parents’ rules.

And teens can encourage younger kids to obey too. It’s huge. They’re the best teachers in the world by word and example.

For any frontier family, these one-word guidelines ring true and simple, but not easy. A part of the challenges along the spiritual frontier.

Stephen Bly

Copyright©2002

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Stephen Bly’s blog article and podcast on “Frontier Faith” here FRONTIER FAITH