I will bless those who bless you, and I will curse him who curses you; and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed. 
(Gen. 12:3)

Most people we know want to have a blessed family. They want a marriage made in heaven; they want their kids to love the Lord and one another; they want everyone in the family to succeed in life as they identify their particular gifts and callings and grow into their full potential in God.

I know that’s what we desired when my husband and I met and were married.

The good news is that the Lord wants this for all of us, too!

In our case, fast forward to twenty-nine years of marriage, four kids, one son-in-law and one daughter-in-law—and we can happily report that God has blessed our family. That doesn’t mean we haven’t faced trials or that our family has been perfect. Far from it. For us, the blessing of God on our family looks like this, most of the time: we are a family that loves the Lord; that loves each other; that loves reaching people and building His church and that loves the life He is allowing us to live.

While our family is still a work in progress, we’ve seen enough of God’s goodness that we want to encourage you and your family with four secrets we’ve learned along the way.

Secret #1: Believe God’s Promise to Bless Your Family. One of the very first promises of the Bible is a promise God gave to Abraham—part of that promise included God’s desire to bless Abraham’s family and through him to bless all the families of the earth! For those of us living under the New Testament, the Lord wanted to be sure we understood that this promise wasn’t just for Abraham or for the Jewish people, but it was for us as Christians. Listen to this: “And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.” (Gal. 3:29) In other words, if we would believe in God and His promises and live accordingly, our families could experience His love, goodness and blessings. God wants to bless your family – do you believe it?

Secret #2: Let God’s Word Be Your Guide. Jesus said, “Man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from God’s mouth.” (Matt. 4:4) From the very beginning of our marriage, we decided that we were going to “live by” God’s Word. We decided we were going to seek the Lord, be led by His Spirit and dig into His Word to get His leading, direction, guidance and confirmation as we made thousands of important decisions for our family. Having a Scripture or two always gave us the anchor we needed to hold steady when life got stormy. The Lord was always true to His Word and not one of His promises has ever failed. God wants to lead you by His Word – will you spend time listening to Him and following His guidance?

Secret #3: Live To Please the Lord. We prayed this prayer for our family, a lot: “For this reason we also, since the day we heard it, do not cease to pray for you, and to ask that you may be filled with the knowledge of His will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding; that you may walk worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing Him, being fruitful in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God…” (Col. 1:9-10) As a family, this was our simple goal. We did our best to make decisions that would please the Lord; to treat one another in a way that would please the Lord and to resist temptations in order to please the Lord. We knew He loved people and was focused on building His Church; so we did our best to please the Lord by making His priorities our priorities. We weren’t perfect in any of these things, so when we blew it, we received His goodness, favor, grace and mercy, because that pleased the Lord! God wants a pleasant love relationship with you and everyone in your family – will you make “pleasing the Lord” a goal for your family?

Secret #4: Have Fun. This one is pretty obvious and even though we faced hard times like every family does, we were still very intentional about having fun, being silly, laughing a lot, taking family vacations (even when all we had was a shoestring budget) and hugging and telling each other, “love you” a lot! After all, God wants us to trust in Him and enjoy life.

The Bible says, “Command those who are rich in this present age not to be haughty, nor to trust in uncertain riches but in the living God, who gives us richly all things to enjoy.” (1 Tim. 6:17) Sadly, these days there is a lot of pain and hurt in many families. As a result, parents and kids are not having fun. Instead they are depressed, empty, angry and full of resentment and bitterness. God doesn’t want that for any family. He wants your family to love one another and to have fun – will you start looking for the joy-filled side of life and help your family laugh more?

Prayer: Father, I receive Your promise to bless my family. I am in Christ, which means I am Abraham’s seed and an heir of this promise. Help our family to live by the guidance of Your Word; help us live in a way that pleases You and help us to have fun! In Jesus' Name. Amen.