10 Commitments™ for Dads by Josh McDowell

Author:Josh McDowell
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780736953863
Publisher: Harvest House Publishers

* Kevin has devoted his life to ministering to young people and helping parents successfully guide their young people through a godless culture. Jane has an extensive background in career counseling of both young people and adults. To check out what they have available go to www.LifeKeys.com. You will also find there is a book and course for adults on their site called Discover Who You Are. Check it out.

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COMMITMENT #6

I Will Do My Best to

Impart God’s Way of Forming Healthy Love Relationships

The wedding music begins to play as you and your family are seated. A relative is getting married and your wife, son, and daughter are there with you to witness the ceremony.

Your daughter leans toward you and begins to talk softly. “Dad, will the vows cousin Sara makes today really stick? I mean, isn’t that what true love is supposed to do—make a marriage last forever?”

Before you can answer your son overhears and interrupts. “You can’t love someone forever, dumbhead. I mean nobody loves forever—right, Dad?”

“Nobody’s talking to you, lizard breath,” your daughter fires back. “What I mean, Dad, is when I find that special man in my life I want it to be true love. So how do I make sure it’s true love—a love that will last forever?”

“Tell her, Dad,” your son interjects. “Tell her no one is going to love her for five minutes, let alone forever.”

Now it’s not likely that your kids are going to put those questions to you quite like that. But you can be sure that, at some point, they will want to know what makes for a true love relationship. As they begin to enter adulthood their interest in love and relationships increases. I remember at one point my daughters seemed to go through boyfriends on almost a weekly basis. And that was a prime time to help them, and my son, to understand what real love does and what real love is.

In a previous chapter we defined real love as making the security, happiness, and welfare of another person as important as your own. When a love relationship is rooted in the concept of making the interests of another as important as your own (love your neighbor as yourself), it becomes a healthy one.

However, what our kids hear and see in today’s culture is rarely a representation of a healthy love. Selfish, lustful, and even abusive behavior is often passed off as a love relationship. That is why, in a real sense, we must redefine to our kids what such a relationship actually is from a biblical perspective. By the time a typical child reaches ten years old he or she probably has a distorted concept of how a person in a loving relationship acts. And as dads, along with our wives, we need to correct these distortions by reintroducing our kids to what makes a love relationship healthy. Over time I discovered at least five biblical components that make such relationships healthy. Imparting these truths on them to your kids will go a long way in helping them form healthy relationships with others.

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