Family

By Jim Faughn
    I am writing these words with some trepidation. I fully understand that we are in a presidential election year and that anything written or said about a particular candidate could be volatile.
    For that reason, no candidate or party affiliation will be mentioned.
    However, as I was listening to a speech recently, one of the candidates made a remark about his “take” on the importance of family. I thought it was worth passing on to those who may read these words.
     The candidate said that he wears a bracelet with the letters FAMILY on it. He said that those letters remind him about his own philosophy about what a family is (and maybe his role in that family.
     According to him, the letters stand for ---
Forget
About
Me.
I
Love
You.
I have no way of knowing whether or not this idea is original with the candidate. He may have borrowed the idea from some other source.
     Come to think of it, there is another source with a very similar idea. We’ve heard preachers and others talk about that Greek word agape for years. We’ve heard that, as used in the Bible, it means something like a “sacrificial, serving kind of love.” It is said to be a kind of love where we want what’s best for the other person.
     Six short words could make a major difference in a lot of marriages (and other relationships for that matter). Those six words may or may not be a good “campaign slogan.”
     They would, however, put a lot of divorce lawyers and marriage counselors out of business.
     They would help our homes to be much closer to God’s design than is the case in so many places today.
     You don’t need a bracelet. You just need to look the members of your family in the eye (and maybe hold their hand) while you say (and mean), “Forget about me. I love you.”
- Jim Faughn serves as an elder and preacher for the Central Church of Christ in Paducah KY.  He may be contacted through the congregation's website: http://www.centralchurchofchrist.org