In the middle of conflict or trials, the devil wants to destroy you and your family. But the Lord is good and his design for trials is much different. You can emerge from these things, and your family can, more like Christ. Here are some simple but difficult things that will keep your soul and sustain the life of Christ in your home during hard times:
1. Humility under the Word of God. The Bible is a condescension of God into our minds and lives. Its truths, symbols, stories, commands, and poetry lift us to heaven and ground us in the Lord himself. I say humility because our posture, as we read and meditate and discuss the Bible, needs to be that of servants to our Lord, sheep with our shepherd, creatures before our creator, friends before our savior, worshippers before glory, confessors to the fountain of forgiveness, etc. We don't search the Scriptures for self-justification (John 5:39) but to bring ourselves to the Lord in humility, in our need, with sincere and ready hearts. (Psalm 119:75)
2. Honesty about hardship without rancor toward enemies. First of all, it’s the Lord who brings our trials, not primarily other people (Gen 45:8). When we focus on everyone else, we will soon find ourselves picking everyone apart, not simply being honest about evils, confronting or resisting them appropriately, but stuck in a prideful disdain and self-exaltation or bitterness of heart. Yet, we must join with the psalmist and with the apostles in telling the truth about our suffering and the evils being done. Our children do need our honesty under the Lord— in appropriate doses—they need to see us growing in real, thoughtful and tangible, obedience. They need to see that we can receive life from God‘s hand, and that our aim is not our self exaltation, but our glory in his glory and under his glory, and we are sustained by his blessing. Paul did not pretend that people were being faithful when they were not, but kept forgiveness in his heart. (2 Tim 4:16) The nearness of the Lord himself made all the difference. (2Tim 4:17)
3. Joy in the life God has given even when times are hard. Even under the hard hand of judgment in Babylon, God’s people were called to live a full, normal life. (Jeremiah 29:5-6). “I know the plans I have for you… to give you a future and a hope.” (Jer. 29:11) Fill your life and your home with truth, goodness, and beauty. Biblical joy is not the naive and fake denial of hardship, but it is certainly the reception of life as a gift from God’s hand—even when that hand is heavy. It is the recognition that judgments do not erase God’s goodness, he is simple and undivided. Praise, thanksgiving, prayer, labor, and service can fill the darkness of conflict or hardship with light and life. (Acts 16:25)
May the Lord himself bless us all in that way, to his glory in our generations.