TLP S00-E16: Planning for a Successful Family

Planning for a Successful Family in the New Year

Doesn't it make sense that intentional premeditated parents would develop a plan for the new year? The key isn't making or not making resolutions. The key is actually more like a trident. Three points, all necessary to make your resolutions part of who your family is.

Welcome to Truth. Love. Parent. Where we use God's Word to become intentional premeditated parents. Here's your host A .M. Brewster.

Welcome to our 16th episode and last podcast of the year. Thank you so much for joining us and spending the past couple months with us. We launched in September and I'm praising God that we've been able to keep going.

On that note, we have some very exciting news to share with you in the new year. I hope you'll join us on Tuesday, January 3rd for our special start of year announcement. That's right. You heard correctly.

Our first podcast of the year will be on a Tuesday and it's part of one of our surprises for your family. Well, the stereotypically cliched thing to do at the end of the year is to make New Year's resolutions.

And to be frank, that's not a bad idea. And just because 98 of people will fail to keep their resolutions into the new year doesn't mean that they're bad or worthless. I mean, think about the other amazing things 98 of Americans either don't do or fail at.

And doesn't it make sense that intentional premeditated parents would develop a plan for the new year? The key isn't really making or not making resolutions. The key is actually more like a trident. Three points, all of them necessary to make your resolutions part of who you are.

So today we're going to talk about those three things necessary to successfully implementing your resolutions. But more importantly, we're going to discuss the types of resolutions intentional premeditated parents should be making with their families.

The Three Prongs of a Successful New Year’s Trident

So let's start with our New Year's trident. As you know, a trident is a three-pronged spear. Generally, the middle prong is longer than the others. Otherwise, it looks kind of like a pitchfork and that's not nearly cool enough for our illustration today.

So picture a trident in your mind and focus in on the left prong. This prong we're going to call content and is absolutely necessary in successfully implementing your resolutions because it deals with what you're resolving.

We'll talk more about this specific content of your resolutions later in the show and then again on Tuesday. During Tuesday's episode, I plan to discuss the single most important thing I can say to parents.

Period. And this goes for all parents of any age and with families of every size. Tuesday's show should be a big part of your family's resolutions, and I hope you join us. But for now, keep in mind that your resolutions will be very hard to keep if your content is mediocre.

Resolutions like, our family resolves to go to church more. Though it may be good. It's also too vague. We want to read more this year. Again, that's not only vague, but it's hard for school-aged kids to get behind because they're generally read way more than mom and dad do because of school.

And then there are the ones that few families will be able to accomplish either because of means or time. You know, this year we should resolve to do more world travel. So whether it's too vague or too inapplicable or too unachievable, the content of your resolutions will either set you up for success or failure.

Now picture, if you will, the right prong of your trident. This prong is called communication. Many resolutions fail or are forgotten because we write them on a slip of paper and drop them in a jar. Or after a month, we're having a hard time remembering the monstrous list we scribbled during that burst of New Year adrenaline, and we wouldn't even know where to start looking for it.

It may be on a desk or nailed to the front door of a church somewhere. Where I work at Victory Academy for Boys, I post a lot of things on our walls. This includes schedules, reminders, quotes, and three or four copies of The Communication House from evermyadministries .com.

And I do this so the boys have it in front of their eyes all throughout the house. I regularly encourage people to write a keyword on their mirrors or put a whiteboard in a prominent place in their room so that they can keep their goals easy to see.

You can tape a message to your desk, staple a note to the bottom of your children's bunk bed so the one sleeping on the bottom can see it first thing in the morning. Or you could even paint a masterpiece designed to metaphorically remind you of your resolutions.

Much of the arts and decorations in our house are just that. I commissioned a painting from Corey Godby from my wife to remind us of the importance of contentment. It's a watercolor of a little girl pulling a phone booth in a wagon.

It's really cute. It's amazing. Whether you understand the message of the painting or not, when people see it, they just love the painting because this little girl's pulling this phone booth and everyone looking out in the background is carrying the newest and smallest phones on the market.

But the girl with the wagon has her head held high with a look of joyous contentment on her face. We also have a lot of tree decor around the house. We're constantly discussing the importance of spiritual growth and fruit and the tree image helps to remind us of that all year long.

Of course, your art doesn't have to be metaphorical. Many people have actual Bible verses artistically displayed on their walls and door frames and even the ceilings above their beds. And just not forget before we move on here the importance of reminders.

They're discussed all throughout the Bible. Joshua 4 .21 gives us an example of the Israelites going through a lot of trouble to construct a visual reminder of God's grace and love. I mean, they were taking huge rocks up out of the middle of the Jordan River and this reminder needed to be so significant that it was designed to be standing long after the ones who built it had died.

Nehemiah 9 .17 gives us a very sad view of people who allowed themselves to forget God's works. They didn't remind themselves. And then Peter tells us in 2 Peter 1 .15 that knowing he would be dying soon, he worked very hard to give the people things that they could remember once he was gone.

Peter also is the one who told us in chapter 2 verse 12 of the same book that he would always be ready to remind them of the things even though they already knew them. See, being reminded of what we know is indispensable.

So in order to successfully implement our family's resolutions, we need to have worthy content that's clearly communicated throughout the day by auditory reminders and visual cues. Now, the final and central prong of our resolution spearing trident is called character.

Character, Christlikeness, and Biblically Successful Resolutions

You see, when we're honest with ourselves, we can see that at the root of nearly every failed resolution is our own poor character. I didn't lose those 20 pounds because I lack self-control. I didn't speak more lovingly to my children because in the moment I kept defaulting to my own selfishness.

I didn't get that raise because my work ethic needed more attention than my client list did. Your ability to lift an object is in direct proportion to the strength of your muscles. Our resolutions should be challenging to us, otherwise we likely would already be doing them.

So it's okay that your family's goals are heavy, but it's the regular working out of your spiritual muscles that will enable you to lift that goal and make it part of your daily life. The problem is that addressing our character is far more difficult than addressing our resolutions.

It's really easy to say, I want to lose 20 pounds or I want to get a promotion or I want to start learning to play the flute this year, than it is to say, I need to be more respectful. I need to be more obedient.

I need to love my God more. I need to trust my God more. I mean, when you think about it, there are a plethora of resolutions each of our families can make that would be extremely achievable if the individuals in our homes cared enough about God and his word.

So there are the three C's of successfully growing this year. Create solid, achievable content. Make sure you consistently communicate your goals to yourself and your family every day of the year. And make sure you focus on your character first, because without a Christ-honoring, God-trusting, spirit-following heart, you'll really never be biblically successful at anything worthwhile.

Family-Specific Resolutions for Spiritual Growth and Counseling

Okay, so let's move on to our final thought of the day. What types of things should your family resolve this year? What should your content actually be? Well, before I jump right into it, I just want to tell you that our trident we've been talking about gives us a fantastic starting place.

I mean, you could just resolve to use the trident and be perfectly fine. You can share this podcast with the whole family and just premeditatedly discuss with them the best goals for the house. Resolve that whatever resolutions you come up with will be consistently and clearly communicated in such a way that the whole family can have the goals ever before them.

Because honestly, if it's not important to always be working toward, why make it a resolution in the first place? So to officially start your list, you know, the first of your New Year's resolutions could just be the combined character of the home.

But don't be vague. Consider each family member and discuss what's needed to help each person become more like Christ. That might involve more church attendance or accountability and spending time with God in the morning, or family devotions or a verse memory program or just a dedication for mom and dad to seek help in their parenting.

And maybe a promise from the kids to genuinely get help for their childrening. We'll be talking about the role of counseling in the family later this year with Heath Lambert, and we'll all go much farther once we understand what the Proverbs are talking about when they say there's wisdom in a multitude of counselors.

So like, OK, you know, our first list is rededication to character and implementing the New Year's trident. Now what? Well, it would really be foolish and irresponsible for me to give you too many specific examples of resolutions.

For your family, because I don't really know your family and the best resolutions aren't just specific, they're family specific. So I want to finish off here by giving you some categories of resolutions your family really needs to consider.

Personal Enrichment Through Skills, Hobbies, and Learning

Number one, the first type of resolution your family should be making and the most important is this. So we've already talked about spiritual growth. And because we've already discussed that and we will be discussing it again in the future on Friday, I just really I want to move on to number two.

The second goal everyone in the family should have is what I like to call personal enrichment. You see, God has miraculously given us the ability to learn, the command to learn and the power to learn.

And if we're not growing in our abilities and talents this year, we're really we're wasting God's blessings. This reminder had a huge impact on my family this year. It all started, I think, with my kids signing up for gymnastics.

And when we signed them up for gymnastics, we also got them more engaged in their training in the martial arts. Then one day, my wife's friend bought herself a penny whistle. This, among other things, inspired my wife to get herself one.

Then she bought one for each of the kids. And in a few weeks, we ended up playing a special in church with me and the guitar and my wife and my son playing the penny whistle and all of us singing. The tin whistle then re-inspired my wife to kind of double down on the kids' piano lessons.

She had started the lessons with the kids and it was kind of a hit or miss thing. But she saw how how quickly the kids were picking up the piano, sorry, the penny whistle. And she realized that, man, I need to get them back into their regular music practice with the piano.

Well, this is kind of funny. This eventually led to me learning to play the piano. Now, you need to understand I've played a number of instruments in my life, the guitar and the violin. And and I've always wanted to learn to play the piano, but never really did it.

And I did it because, you know, I, quote unquote, didn't have the time. I was already playing other instruments. And honestly, you know, most of the instruments I played were kind of a one finger at a time thing in many ways.

But, you know, when you get to the piano, that's all ten fingers doing different things and the feet. And I just I pretty much gave lots of different excuses for why I wasn't going to do it. But as I was watching my children becoming successful at the piano and I saw how easy it seemed, I was like, well, you know what, I'll I'll give it a whirl.

And I sat down and just with this this adult beginner piano book, I started I started teaching myself how to play. And within a couple of hours, I was actually on page 50 of the book and I was already able to pass up where my kids had been working to over the past few weeks.

Now, this whole thing just really was exciting for me. I still I'm working my way through that book. I'm still playing through the songs are getting harder and harder. So I'm obviously not moving as quickly.

But every day I'm sitting down, I'm playing the piano. Well, this led me to wanting to break out my violin, which I hadn't played in over a decade. And so I sat down there and I polished up my playing, which the kids saw me doing that and they thought it was really cool.

And they wanted to try their hand at the violin. And so as a Christmas present, I decided I'd start teaching my children the violin. Of course, that reminded me of a number of the other skills I'd let slide over the years.

So as a family, we redoubled our efforts in the martial arts and in other little hobbies and things that we had had going on. But we just honestly gotten lazy and because of general busyness. Eventually, everyone in the family also took up crocheting and knitting due to a family friend showing my daughter the basics in knitting.

And then my wife, who always wanted to paint, was inspired by, I think, the huge tsunami wave of personal enrichment flowing through our home at this time of year. She just went out and she said, you know, I'm going to buy some canvases and I'm going to try my hand at it.

Well, of course, as you can imagine, the whole family has now been learning to paint. And after all that, the point is this. My story may sound insane and you may be tempted to dismiss it because you're convinced that my family is, quote unquote, abnormal or, quote unquote, one of those families.

Or you're now convinced that we were able to do all those things because we, quote unquote, have a lot of money. Well, listen, you'd be 100 percent, totally, completely wrong. We're just a normal family with a below average income.

The only thing besides the supplies that we paid for was the very first thing on the list. Gymnastics lessons. The thing that kind of all started with. That's the only thing we're actually we're paying someone to teach us.

The music lessons and the martial arts and the painting and the textiles are all results of us teaching ourselves, getting books, asking friends, going on YouTube. You see, it's really just a question of priorities and any family can do it.

We're praising the Lord that after 11 years of marriage and two kids, we're finally seeing how much time we use to waste and how much we're able to accomplish when we have good goals. And we want you to be able to see this, too.

So the first type of resolution that you should make is to help you and your family grow in Christ likeness. The second one is to figure out a couple of family specific ways you can all grow personally.

It may be sports or music or academics or art or agriculture or speech. It really doesn't matter. Just just pick something. Now, the number three type of resolution is this. Everyone in your home should definitely make some financial resolutions.

Financial Stewardship, Wastefulness, and Spending Wisely

I was once again convicted when I was reading the account of Joseph to the guys in my house. Have you ever realized that for seven years, Joseph took only 20 percent of the harvest? The Egyptians took the other 80 percent.

Then after the seven years of plenty, I came to an end. And after the first year of famine, the Egyptians had consumed all of the 80 percent that they had taken in. But Joseph was able to sustain the entire country and most of the known world for six more years with just the 20 percent that he saved.

Wow. You see, few of us need to make more money. Honestly, if I told you how much I made, you'd probably blush because you might have been tempted to think that I had a lot of money because my previous list.

But we're not talking about the quantity of your savings. We're talking about the quality of your spending. Later this year, we're going to do a show on wastefulness because it's so sad how many of God giving blessings we just throw in the garbage.

Really, every family needs to reconsider their spending. And it is a big chunk of that is obviously a monetary spending. But it's also how we spend our time, which is related back to a resolution number two, the personal enrichment and the resolution number one, becoming more like Christ, because you need time to do that.

Wellness, Eating, Drinking, and Glorifying God

Now, the fourth and final type of resolution your family can make is in the area of wellness. One of the greatest gifts we squander is our health. Now, I am not about to launch into some diatribe about how exactly you need to be eating or essential oiling or exercising or whatever.

That's not the point of this. The point is really to encourage you that the first resolution in this particular category your family needs to make is this research. Just just research your current way of living and eating.

Many of us make terrible health choices in our eating simply because that's the way we and everyone else has always done it. When my wife and I were married, I knew my lifestyle was very different than hers.

But instead of telling her it was my way or the highway, I encouraged her to research our differences, look at them from all sides, research them from my perspective, research them from her perspective.

And it wasn't long before my wife was making better health choices than I was. It was actually amazing the things I started to learn from her because she took this research thing very seriously. You see, First Corinthians 1031 says that whether we're eating or drinking, which are two of the most basic bodily functions, we need to do them all to the glory of God.

We need to eat and drink in a certain way that when people witness us eating and drinking, they think higher of God. Do people think higher of God because of our diets? Do people think better of our God because of our health?

So we can't do that if we're eating and drinking ignorantly because it's impossible to accidentally glorify God. So let's just be intentional this year with the gift of life. And that's it. Even if you make just one family specific resolution in each of those four categories, you'll be focusing on the most important things in your lives.

Spiritually conforming to God's word, exercising your skills and abilities, wisely spending and saving your money and sustaining your health and wellness. So here's a final breakdown of how to plan for a successful family in the new year.

Number one, make sure your resolutions have good content. Make specific, detailed and attainable resolutions for each of your family members in the following categories. Spirituality, enrichment, finances and wellness.

Number two, communicate your resolutions on a daily basis. This can and should be done verbally, but filling your living and work spaces with visual cues is vital to actually implementing your goals. And three, make your character the main focus.

Our families won't grow this year if we're not washing ourselves in the word and walking by its light. Now, if you'd like assistance creating family specific resolutions, you can always contact us at counselor at evermindministries .com.

And don't forget to check out our website in the new year at evermindministries .com. You should also just go ahead right now, get out a list, write it down, make a new year's resolution to follow us on social media.

That's probably the best resolution you can make. Just search Evermind Ministries on Facebook, Pinterest, Instagram and Twitter. You can also follow me there at AM Brewster, or you can just go to evermindministries .com and follow the social media links there.

Thank you so much for joining me today. From my family to yours, we love you and hope that you have a safe and happy new year.

Truth, love, parent is part of the Evermind Ministries family and is dedicated to helping you become an intentional premeditated parent. Join us next time as we search God's word for the truth your family needs today.