Ron Hutchcraft Ministries - How Families Get in Trouble - #8251

Thursday, April 16, 2009

Download MP3 (right click to save)

San Francisco Bay’s a beautiful place. Suddenly it was much less beautiful with more than 53,000 gallons of fuel oil spilling into the bay near the Bay Bridge. An oil tanker sideswiped one of the bridge’s support towers and that’s all it took to rupture the fuel tanks and create a spill that cost $70 million to clean up. The National Transportation Safety Board now says that one of the main causes was poor communication between the captain and the pilot.

I’m Ron Hutchcraft and that is actually not the first time a big mess has resulted from the lack of communication. In fact, that’s how many families get in trouble, because the captain and the pilot aren’t communicating. From Adam and Eve on, the Bible makes it clear that the husband is assigned by God to be the captain of the family, lovingly charting the course for the family in finances, in discipline, in problem-solving, in spiritual leadership. And the wife is the pilot, keeping the family on the course the captain has set with her loving counsel. But too often, a husband and wife are living in two different worlds; taking little time to hear each other’s hearts. The Bible says, “How can two walk together unless they are agreed?” (Amos 3:3 ).

A football team that doesn’t have regular huddles is going to end up with a lot of broken plays, a lot of chaos on the field. It’s the same with a man and wife. You’ve got to huddle regularly to compare calendars, to address problems, to head off problems, to discuss finances, to hear each other’s hurts and to hear each other’s hearts. Because if the captain and the pilot aren’t communicating clearly and regularly, their ship is headed for a big and costly mess.

This radio program references: Amos 3:3