Family Values

Proverbs 22:6 “Train up a child in the way he should go; even when he is old he will not depart from it.”

This morning at our church’s monthly Men’s “Fella-Ship” Breakfast, I was asked to be the guest speaker for the event. In the talk, I told the group of 40+ gentlemen that I am a Baby Boomer, born in 1956 to “Depression Era” parents. You can not help when and where the good Lord places you in this world, but I loved my upbringing. My father, at 18 years old, came to California from Missouri to join the US Navy to defend our nation in World War 2 and remained until the end of the Korean War. My mother came to California from Oklahoma with her parents as a child during the “Dust Bowl” period to look for work. My parent met on a blind date at a dance club in Long beach, California, while he was on “shore leave” out of the San Diego Navel base. He actual was set up with another young lady, but another sailor asked if they could change dance partner because his girl was too tall.

They ended up marrying and had three children; all boys, which I am the youngest. After the war, my father hired on with AT&T as a Lineman in Orange County, California, parents settled into a new house in Anaheim, California, where I was reared and raised. Being that both of my parents came from family that were poor during the Depression Era of the United States, they respected the value of a dollar and taught essential core family values of morals, ethical behavior, manners, truthfulness and a strong work ethic. Solid family ties helped form our identity of who we were, based upon “whose” we were.

John 1:12-13 “But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.”

I explained at the Men’s event that the same is true for our relation with our Heavenly Father. Those who accept the free gift of Salvation through the atoning and redeeming death of our Savior and Lord Jesus Christ (aka Believers), are grafted into the family of God. The Word of God communicates and teaches us the core values of godly morality, saintly ethical behavior, devout manners, pious truthfulness and a holy work ethic. Solid family ties helped form our identity of who we are, based upon “whose” we are.

May we live out our strong family values.

In Christ, Brian