I would want to make reference to a couple of testimonies which confirm some of the things we have been understanding from the Bible as to how God would want us to view the family.

One of those testimonies came from a father whose daughter lives in another nation. The father related how he was carried in the Spirit to his daughter’s home where he saw her under a depression. He was moved by the Spirit of God to prayer. He prayed in the early hours of the morning, speaking in tongues, not knowing exactly what he was praying about, only knowing it was for his daughter.

When next he spoke to her by telephone, she was amazed that he knew what was happening to her.

We are speaking here, not about a child, but a daughter who is married. She has her own home, lives in a foreign country and is no longer dependent upon her father to provide for her.

The question that needs to be asked is why is it that the Spirit of God will reveal her condition to her father and lead him to pray for her. But this is exactly what we have been saying from the scripture: That there will always be a tie that binds family members, that parents will always have a certain amount of responsibility towards children, that parents should always be there for counsel and guidance and that it is a deception of the enemy to have parents literally give up on their children at the legal age of eighteen (18).

Parents are simply required to play different roles at different stages in the life of the child. But when that child becomes an adult, the parental guidance will always be needed as parents remain by virtue of age much more experienced and mature than the child.

Quite a number of parents now feel intimidated by their children whom they consider to be more educated and “smarter” than they are. This could only be because parents fail to understand that their role has nothing to do with their level of education in academics but rather is rooted in their experience and call by God to be parents.

The Scripture in Titus 2, verses 3 and 4, says that in the church the aged women should “teach the young women to be sober, to love their husbands, to love their children”. This had nothing to do with the education of the aged women, but implies they possess experience, which they have accumulated over time, in loving their husbands and children. It also implies that the young people need to be taught to love. It suggests that loving a husband and children (in other words, loving your family) is something that must be learnt and could be taught. How would marriages benefit if the aged women would fulfill their responsibilities? How would marriages benefit if the parents, being older and more experienced, would teach their children. We would suggest that when parents encounter problems in their own relationship, they use the opportunity to teach their children how to manage and work toward solutions that in the end, benefit the marriage and family.