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Marriage
Matters
Being A Great Dad
True
Definition of a Husband
The
home is an institution of God. God designed that the family
circle, father, mother, and children, should exist in this
world as a firm [partnership].
The
work of making home happy does not rest upon the mother alone.
Fathers have an important part to act. The husband is the
"house-band" of the home treasures, binding by his
strong, earnest, devoted affection the members of the
household, mother and children, together in the strongest
bonds of union.
His
name, "house-band," is the true definition of
husband. . . . I saw that but few fathers realize their
responsibility.
The
Head of the Family Firm
The
husband and father is the head of the household. The wife
looks to him for love and sympathy and for aid in the training
of the children; and this is right. The children are his as
well as hers, and he is equally interested in their welfare.
The children look to the father for support and guidance; he
needs to have a right conception of life and of the influences
and associations that should surround his family; above all,
he should be controlled by the love and fear of God and by the
teaching of His word, that he may guide the feet of his
children in the right way. .
The
father should do his part toward making home happy. Whatever
his cares and business perplexities, they should not be
permitted to overshadow his family; he should enter his home
with smiles and pleasant words.
The
Lawmaker and Priest.
All
members of the family center in the father. He is the
lawmaker, illustrating in his own manly bearing the sterner
virtues: energy, integrity, honesty, patience, courage,
diligence, and practical usefulness. The father is in one
sense the priest of the household, laying upon the altar of
God the morning and evening sacrifice. The wife and children
should be encouraged to unite in this offering and also to
engage in the song of praise. Morning and evening the father,
as priest of the household, should confess to God the sins
committed by himself and his children through the day. Those
sins which have come to his knowledge and also those which are
secret, of which God's eye alone has taken cognizance, should
be confessed. This rule of action, zealously carried out by
the father when he is present or by the mother when he is
absent, will result in blessings to the family.
The
father represents the divine Lawgiver in his family. He is a
laborer together with God, carrying out the gracious designs
of God and establishing in his children upright principles,
enabling them to form pure and virtuous characters, because he
has preoccupied the soul with that which will enable his
children to render obedience not only to their earthly parent
but also to their heavenly Father.
The
father must not betray his sacred trust. He must not, on any
point, yield up his parental authority.
To
Walk With God.
The
father . . . will bind his children to the throne of God by
living faith. Distrusting his own strength, he hangs his
helpless soul on Jesus and takes hold of the strength of the
Most High. Brethren, pray at home, in your family, night and
morning; pray earnestly in your closet; and while engaged in
your daily labor, lift up the soul to God in prayer. It was
thus that Enoch walked with God. The silent, fervent prayer of
the soul will rise like holy incense to the throne of grace
and will be as acceptable to God as if offered in the
sanctuary. To all who thus seek Him, Christ becomes a present
help in time of need. They will be strong in the day of trial.
Maturity
of Experience Called For.
A
father must not be as a child, moved merely by impulse. He is
bound to his family by sacred, holy ties.
What
his influence will be in the home will be determined by his
knowledge of the only true God and Jesus Christ whom He has
sent. "When I was a child," Paul says, "I spoke
as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but
when I became a man, I put away childish things." The
father is to stand at the head of his family, not as an
overgrown, undisciplined boy, but as a man with manly
character and with his passions controlled. He is to obtain an
education in correct morals. His conduct in his home life is
to be directed and restrained by the pure principles of the
word of God. Then he will grow up to the full stature of a man
in Christ Jesus.
Submit
the Will to God.
To
the man who is a husband and a father, I would say, Be sure
that a pure, holy atmosphere surrounds your soul. . . . You
are to learn daily of Christ. Never, never are you to show a
tyrannical spirit in the home. The man who does this is
working in partnership with satanic agencies. Bring your will
into submission to the will of God. Do all in your power to
make the life of your wife pleasant and happy. Take the word
of God as the man of your counsel. In the home live out the
teachings of the word. Then you will live them out in the
church and will take them with you to your place of business.
The principles of heaven will ennoble all your transactions.
Angels of God will cooperate with you, helping you to reveal
Christ to the world.
A
Fitting Prayer For
a Quick-tempered Husband.
Do
not allow the vexations of your business to bring darkness
into your home life. If, when little things occur that are not
exactly as you think they should be, you fail to reveal
patience, long forbearance, kindness, and love, you show that
you have not chosen as a companion Him who so loved you that
He gave His life for you, that you might be one with Him.
In
the daily life you will meet with sudden surprises,
disappointments, and temptations. What says the word?
"Resist the devil," by firm reliance upon God,
"and he will flee from you. Draw nigh to God, and He will
draw nigh to you." "Let him take hold of My
strength, that he may make peace with Me; and he shall make
peace with Me." Look unto Jesus at all times and in all
places, offering a silent prayer from a sincere heart that you
may know how to do His will. Then when the enemy comes in like
a flood, the Spirit of the Lord will lift up a standard for
you against the enemy. When you are almost ready to yield, to
lose patience and self-control, to be hard and denunciatory,
to find fault and accuse - this is the time for you to send to
heaven the prayer, "Help me, O God, to resist temptation,
to put all bitterness and wrath and evil-speaking out of my
heart. Give me Thy meekness, Thy lowliness, Thy
long-suffering, and Thy love. Leave me not to dishonor my
Redeemer, to misinterpret the words and motives of my wife, my
children, and my brethren and sisters in the faith. Help me
that I may be kind, pitiful, tenderhearted, forgiving. Help me
to be a real house-band in my home and to represent the
character of Christ to others."
Exercise
Authority With Humility
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While Jesus is the head of the
church, He is also the servant to the church and to the world. |
It
is no evidence of manliness in the husband for him to dwell
constantly upon his position as head of the family. It does
not increase respect for him to hear him quoting Scripture to
sustain his claims to authority. It will not make him more
manly to require his wife, the mother of his children, to act
upon his plans as if they were infallible. The Lord has
constituted the husband the head of the wife to be her
protector; he is the house-band of the family, binding the
members together, even as Christ is the head of the church and
the Saviour of the mystical body. Let every husband who claims
to love God carefully study the requirements of God in his
position. Christ's authority is exercised in wisdom, in all
kindness and gentleness; so let the husband exercise his power
and imitate the great Head of the church.
Ellen
G. White
Ministry of Healing, pp.211-215
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