Hausam Family Credo Study - Week 1

Sometime mid-2008, we wrote and memorized a list of some of our Family Maxims. When my flinging-flanging computer died late last summer and maliciously devoured its own password so I couldn't even retrieve any data, reciting our credo during family devotions kind of slid by the wayside. (I finally played frisbee with it so I think it learned its lesson in the end.)

Anyway, since we hadn't spent time on them in a while, we decided to spend a week focusing on each.

Monday began Week One:

In Our Family, We...
honor God.
All of our behavior is measured against this standard.

The first day I awoke all revved up, fresh faced, ready to roll on polishing up my honoring God. So exciting! The morning went beautifully. Awesome family Bible study. Worship time with the kids. Marg on guitar and Ricker on drums, the rest of us on various rhythm instruments. (Let's not digress here about the virtue of a kazoo in a worship band. Let's just put a pin in that one and we'll save it for later.)

Anyway, that's when the whining, and crying, and interrupting one another, and pretty soon some shouting here and there began and I started to stumble a wee bit with my honoring God attitude. The non-honoring God behavior was soon to follow. Honestly, by the end of a very long, vexing day I was ready to drink Drano feeling pretty humbled and dishonorable. Shoot.

OK, Day 2. Fresh start.

Epiphany... "All of my behavior"... Behavior is action. That doesn't mean I don't have an occasional moment of, say, wanting to stick a fork in someone's eye... It's that I don't actually do it! Instead, I need to wait. And think. And pray. And ask the Lord to show me what is the right and godly choice in this particular moment. I don't think he'll whip out "Stick a fork in thine neighbor's eye", but I'm not putting it past Him because He does have a pretty fantastic sense of humor and irony.

That's really all it is. Taking the 10 second breather and deciding to behave in a way that is honoring to God.

I know it's become sadly pithy, but



What would He do? What did He do in every situation? He honored God the Father, right? And all of His behavior was a blazing testament to that simple standard.

It means I need to weigh everything about my life in light of honoring God. All of it. Not just my behavior because really that's just the fruit. Baby steps!



So, really, this is The Biggie. When I truly live according to the first commandment (upon which this is founded), then the rest is actually supposed to follow organically.

on

By the way, in retrospect, I think God totally would have played frisbee with the old computer. He would have smote it for sure.