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Inward Focused Discipline Will Help Your Family
by Norman and Ann Bales
All About Families

About once a year, we try to get away from the demands of our ongoing ministry and devote a week to study, prayer and meditation. On the first day, each of us spends eight hours in solitude. During that eight hours we confess our sins, spend time in conscious praise, reflect on our growth as Christians, offer intercessory prayers for others and engage in other activities of personal devotion. We do not talk with one another during the entire eight-hour period. Our goal is a quality relationship with God. Family growth is really sort of a by-product. We've noticed that every time we go through the eight-hour prayer and meditation discipline, we observe an immediate improvement in our relationship with each other.

We did not go into the eight-hour prayer exercise with a conscious desire to modify our behavior. We always have the need to change behavior. Like most couples, we have our issues that range all the way from leaving lights on when you leave a room to impulsive spending. We work on those things constantly and have achieved a certain measure of success. The eight-hour solitude exercise isn't about remembering to turn off lights. It's about cultivating a deeper relationship with God. In Ephesians 4:16, Paul wrote, "I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being." We were paying attention to that.

There is a connection between the way you discipline your "inner being" and the way you treat others, especially family members. Jesus once said that unclean things - evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, fully come from the inside (See Mark 7:21-23). In one way or another, every one of those unclean things impairs human relationships. When we take the time to align our thinking with God's standards, there's an amazing by product. Our rapport with wives, husbands, sons, daughters, brothers, sisters and other important family members undergoes a discernible change for the better.

You don't have to plan eight hours of solitude to discipline your thoughts, although that might help. We have a daily need for attitude adjustment. Paul felt he had the need to die daily (1 Corinthians 15:31). We have the same need. Sometimes the number of family relationships that seem to be in constant turmoil overwhelms us. If you find yourself at odds with a family member, you may be discouraged because you can't change the other person. You can't do anything about that, but you can change yourself and it starts with a realignment of priorities between yourself and God.