by Dennis and Barbara Rainey

Matthew 7:25
And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and burst against that house; and yet it did not fall, for it had been founded upon the rock.

I see two major ways in which families fail to respond properly to adversity. First, and most typically, they fail to anticipate the trials and problems that will come. When Jesus spoke of building our lives on a sure foundation, He seemed to assume that the rains will come and the winds will blow.

To the well-known saying that only death and taxes are certain, we can add that troubles are certain, too. As I read recently, "The man whose problems are all behind him is probably a school bus driver."

Second, when troubles do hit, many couples simply don't know how to respond. They have no foundation in Christ, no plan for dealing with the pain-so they turn against one another.

I was just ending a FamilyLife Conference in Dallas when a trim, well-muscled gentleman came up to greet me. He was a Green Beret. I had touched a nerve when I talked about having a plan to face problems because he said, "Dennis, in the Green Berets we train over and over, and then over and over again. We repeat some exercises until we are sick of them, but our instructors know what they are doing. They want us so prepared and finely trained that when trials and difficulties come on the battlefield, we will be able to fall back upon that which has become second nature to us. We literally learn to respond by reflex action."

Families-especially parents-should be so well grounded in God's plan that their reactions to crises and difficulties will be an automatic reflex, not a panic. If you wait until a crisis hits and then turn to the Scriptures, you won't be as prepared-and you'll be more vulnerable to the enemy.

Prayer:

That you will be able to call on your long-standing faith in Christ, and the life of trust you have built on Him, when crises strike.

Discuss: If a life-altering crisis hit your family tomorrow, do you feel you'd be ready?

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