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Our Mission
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Peace in the Home, Inc. is an organization devoted to healthy family relationships. We exist to strengthen, equip, support and bring healing to marriages and families.
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The Manhattan Declaration
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On November 20, 2009 a group of prominent clergy, ministry leaders and scholars released a beautifully articulated 4,700-word document in defence of the sanctity of life, traditional marriage and religious liberty. Peace in the Home fully endorses the declaration, as its statements accurately reflect our organizations core values. As one more way of supporting the family, please visit manhattandeclaration.org where you can review this historic pro-family document, and add your name to over 400,000 people who have already signed it.
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Greetings!
We're back on a marriage track this month, with part one of a three-part series on the most feared and appreciated c-word in relationships -- commitment.
We're pleased to recommend this month's featured resource, Scott Stanley's, "The Power of Commitment". Please click on this link (or the one with the right sidebar illustration) to purchase your own copy.
For those of you who appreciate delving deeper through academic writing and research, we recommend Gordon Hugenberger's, "Marriage as a Covenant". Hugenberger's work contains a solid exposition of Malachi 2:10-16.
The next update to land in your inbox in late February, will be appreciated by parents struggling with how to manage all of the technology (social networks, internet, cell phones) available to children these days. We've surveyed some of our readers, and are looking forward to sharing their insights with you.
Happy Valentine's Day!
Love,
Robert & Melissa
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What if something better comes along?
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"The difference between commitment and involvement is like bacon and eggs for breakfast. The chicken was involved, but the hog was committed." ~ Martina Navratilova
Marital fidelity vaulted to the top of discussions recently, with the involuntary exposure of a certain sports personality's extra-marital activities. While a husband or wife's unfaithfulness seldom raises an eyebrow anymore, a celebrity's dirty laundry still grabs the public's attention. So, maybe this is an opportune time to talk about commitment.
When I was ten-years-old, I wanted to give a ring from a gum ball machine to a girl on whom I had a crush. (I'd heard from a reliable source that jewelry grabs a girl's attention.) Unfortunately, I was so shy, I had to enlist the courage of a friend to present the gift, hoping he would remember to identify the giver. Here I was, wanting to accelerate from zero-to-commitment with an investment of just a few nickels!
For many guys, an immature understanding of commitment results in knee-knocking apprehension. I remember sitting around a pub table with a couple of my single buddies in Vancouver, struggling with that stutter-prone word ... "c-c-c-c-c-commitment!" While we laughed about it, in reality the three of us were running from commitment as desperately as that jeep outran T-Rex in Jurassic Park.
"My, people come and go so quickly here!"
~ Dorothy
Sometimes people enter into marriage with an immature concept of commitment. In spite of wanting a successful relationship, having good intentions and repeating each syllable of the vows, one or both often give up on the marriage at a time when it's most critical to dig in.
Questions that expose an immature understanding of commitment include: "What if my feelings change?", "What if don't get my fair share?", or the mother of all immature questions, "What if something better comes along?"
North American society is committing marital suicide today. The most dangerous thing happening is not the breakdown of individual marriages, tragic as that is, but that people are entering marriage with the thought that they can leave it. ~ R. Paul Stevens
I can't speak for our readers outside of North America, but many of us here are living in a society where personal choice and self-centeredness are valued above faithfulness and selflessness. It's the water we "swim" in every day, so it can't help but affect our thinking.
To the pleasure of some, our choices are becoming quite extensive. Distressed couples can be released from guilt and responsibility through "no-fault" divorce. Emotionally disconnected husbands and wives who have an internet connection can simply create a user name, and start the ball rolling on an internet divorce. How convenient!
On the tube, families are served up an assortment of seemingly cool people modelling promiscuity, adultery, premarital sex, normalized homosexual behaviour, pornography and counterfeit marriage -- all positioned as perfectly reasonable choices in life's bountiful buffet. None of these confusing messages are morally neutral, and most will find a way to work against the health and success of your most important human relationship -- your marriage.
Yes, but what if something better comes along?
This question haunted me for years. Something better will always seem to come along. Commitment means not acting on it. A mature understanding of commitment by a husband or wife means making a choice to forgo permanently the thought of an intimate relationship with another. It's only upon that secure foundation that a relationship between a husband and wife can attain a level of intimacy unavailable anywhere else.
One practical problem many of us face with choices and commitment happens at home with priorities. If we neglect our job, we'll get fired. If we neglect our finances, creditors will repossess what we own. If we neglect our cars, they'll break down. If we neglect our children, they'll behave badly and internalize someone else's values. If we neglect our marriage, we'll rationalize that things will be okay ... until one day we wake up, and they're not. There are always consequences to neglect.
Commitment to your marriage is rightly ordering your priorities. Commitment is marital glue. Commitment is relational perseverance mixed with self-control. Commitment requires intentional and continuous personal effort. Commitment is hard work.
"It won't be easy, but you'll never find it by running."
~ Charles Swindoll
If you are a husband of wife, I'd like to challenge you to stay married -- to adopt a more mature response to commitment. That means remaining faithful and devoted to each other, no matter what; choosing to "forsake all others" when many others are deliciously tempting; and focusing on your mate, even when your mate is disappointing you. Anything short of that understanding is a family crisis that needs to be averted.
Some of you who know about my past relational failures might be thinking: "Who are you, Robert, to be talking about commitment?' It's a valid question, given my history of brokenness. I'm certainly not an expert, but I'm convinced that personal failures, wrong choices, and suffering are just a few ways God shapes the character of those created in His image. I'm also relieved to see that He's used unlikely people in the past to accomplish His purposes.
It took me years and heartache to learn that people don't fall into love. Rather, they grow into it. That slow movement toward intimacy cannot reach its designer's full potential without the security of unconditional commitment lived out in the home. When I stopped asking myself that immature "what if" question, I began to get a better view of the blueprint.
"What God has brought together, let no man separate."
~ Matthew 19:6
All good theology, even theology of the family, is rooted in Genesis. From it we learn that marriage is a glorious gift from God, predating the church, western society and even Judaism. Marriage was an act of creation, initiated by God to unite one man and one woman in a lifelong covenantal relationship for His purposes and for His glory. As we search the scriptures to piece together the blueprint, we find that permanence is a biblical mandate, not just one of many choices at the salad bar. Biblical mandates should always grab our attention.
Some things to think about and discuss this month ...
1. Are you personally satisfied with the attention you and your mate give to your marriage?
2. How committed to your marriage would your husband or wife say your actions demonstrate?
3. What activities enhance your commitment to each other?
4. If you are finding yourself attracted to someone else these days, what immediate actions are you willing to take to protect your marriage, and strengthen your commitment?
5. To what extent have you made your commitment to your mate crystal clear? Think about committing to God that you will honour your marriage covenant, no matter what. Then, share that renewed commitment with your husband or wife.
Commitment (Part II) will deal with its components -- the varieties of "glue" that contribute to keeping a husband and his wife together. If anything in this article has resonated with you, please email us your thoughts and opinions.
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