Forget happy and try healthy

Healthy families are happy families.

Everyone wants to be happy but no one wants to put the effort in to being healthy.

I discovered this last year when I went on my weight journey.

What i wanted was to be happy, and so in the pursuit of happiness I often overindulged in what I though would make me happy.

The last think on my mind was being healthy, but as I started to get healthy, I noticed that I was also getting happy.

But happiness was not the goal, it was the “side effect” of being healthy.

Families are the exact same.

We fail when we pursue happiness, but when we pursue healthiness then happiness follows naturally.

If you see a happy family, you are actually seeing a healthy family. And a healthy family is not a product of selfish self indulgence. A healthy family, like a healthy body is hard work.

There is no such thing as an accidental healthy family.

1: Healthy families are the result of wise, deliberate choices.

Matthew 7:13–14 KJV 1900

13 Enter ye in at the strait gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat: 14 Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it.

If you want to have a healthy body, everything becomes a choice.

What you eat for breakfast, what you drink, how much you eat, getting up early to exercise. All of these are deliberate choices you have to make.

In the same way, a healthy family is not an accident, you have to be prepared to make healthy choices.

What type of husband and father you are is a choice you have to make. What kind of wife and mother you is a choice you have to make. What kind of children you are is a choice you have to make.

And our problem is that we choose happiness over health all the time.

We choose connivence over preparation. Easy over difficult and tempory over eternal. We choose the quick fix over getting to the root of the problem.

2: A healthy family is built on thoughtful behavior.

Matthew 7:12 KJV 1900

12 Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them: for this is the law and the prophets.

I am always stunned by how much christians dont understand this verse or other like it:

Galatians 6:7 KJV 1900

7 Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.

This verse is an answer to prayer. IUn this verse God tells us how to get whast we need from our families.

Allow me to pharaphrase this verse to fit the context of a family:

“Whatever you you wish your husband would do for you, you do that for him.”

“Whatever you wish your wife would do for you, you do that for her.”

“However you wish your parents would treat you, you treat them that way.”

You see when you have this attitude the whole game changes.

You are sitting there waiting to get, but what God says is you start giving first.

Do you klnow why?

Because qwhen you start giving to others that which you want, you learn how hard it is for the other person.

Example:

Lets say man wants more affection from wife. So what he needs to do is show more affection TO his wife.

In doing so what will man learn? He will learn how hard it is to show affection.

So he will be forced to ask: “How can i change to that showing affection to me, comers easier?

In working out how to show his wife the affection he wants from her, he will learn how to be more affectionate with!

3: Healrthy families are buiult on honesty.

Matthew 7:1–5 KJV 1900

1 Judge not, that ye be not judged. 2 For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again. 3 And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother’s eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye? 4 Or how wilt thou say to thy brother, Let me pull out the mote out of thine eye; and, behold, a beam is in thine own eye? 5 Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother’s eye.

One of the most honest things you can say about your family is that YOU are not perfect.

It is so easy to spot the motes in others while being blind to the beams in ourselves.

When you go to the doctor and they do blood test, you dont aurgue about the results. You see what wrong and take steps to fixibng it.

In a family you spouse is the number one way you will know if somewthing is wrong.

And you need to be mature enough to take responcibility for what is wrong.

And you need to be humble enough to accept that something is wrong.

And you need to be wise enough to make the right decision and take the neccesewry steps to fix what is wrong.

And you need to be able to do this WITHOPUT casting all the blame on someone else.

Healthy Families are givers

Matthew 7:2 KJV 1900

2 For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again.