Last week a friend talked about his Thanksgiving plans. “It’s just us and my dad. The rest of the family can’t get along during the year and I can’t stand watching everyone try to be nice to each other. I’m sick of it.” Can you relate?

I shared that story with my wife Brenda at breakfast and asked rhetorically, “So what can you do when your family is difficult, argumentative, critical, negative, and everybody’s always getting their feelings hurt - and then you all moosh together at Thanksgiving?”

She started talking and I grabbed a pad of little 2-inch sticky-note squares to make notes. I had a few thoughts, too. Maybe one of these will add some calm and encouragement to your Thanksgiving :

1.

Take charge of making people feel wanted. Find little ways to show some excitement and appreciation for each person’s presence. Start now, before they arrive. You want them to feel like their presence matters to you.

2.

Don’t expect your words to have the power to fix anything. You’re not going to repair years of family dysfunction on one day. But positive, encouraging words CAN keep things from getting worse, and can set a mood and tone for conversations.

3.

Don’t take Thanksgiving as a chance to talk Christian to your relatives. (Of course if they bring it up, go for it.) Take it as a chance to BE Christian. Show up as your normal self and don’t underestimate the power of Jesus in you.

4.

Be a master of patience and calm. Don’t let your mood or tone be influenced by any chaotic negativity. Don’t try to fix it, don’t scold, don’t get huffy or flustered on the outside. Calm silence is powerful over the long haul.

5.

After eating, while still at the table, go around and share “one thing you appreciate about the one on your left.” YOU start. Keep it short and sincere.

6.

Think of Thanksgiving as just one click on the family togetherness dial. Then later, build on that small improvement in dial position. More opportunities for clicks are coming in December and at Christmas.

7.

Spend some time before Thursday pondering these words:

Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen - Ephesians 4.29

Do all things without grumbling or disputing, that you may be blameless and innocent, children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and twisted generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world - Philippians 2.14-15

For where jealousy and selfish ambition exist, there will be disorder and every vile practice. But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, open to reason, full of mercy and good fruits, impartial and sincere. And a harvest of righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace - James 3.16-18

You might find more ideas HERE.

How do you help your family get along at Thanksgiving?

You love doing it and so do I. We love it because it’s easy, feels good, and comes soooo naturally.

We love to keep score

You know why? You always win! You always win because you get to pick what game to keep score of.

I don’t keep score of the game where Brenda folds my t-shirts or makes breakfast or endures my procrastination. I don’t keep score of the times when I’m totally convinced I’m right and we argue about it and then later it turns out I’m wrong.

You don’t keep score if you think you’ll lose

You keep score because you want to win. You keep score of your sacrifice for them. If you think you’re right more than the other person, you keep score. If they have more shortcomings than you, you keep score. If they offend you more than you do them, you keep score.

Of course you’re humble about it and honestly say, “I know I mess up, too.” You don’t mind saying that because you know they mess up more. You know because you keep score.

You don’t have to write anything down, either, because you keep score automatically - in your soul. We all do. And that’s the problem.

Everyone thinks they win

I keep score of the things where I win and you keep score of the things where you win. So each of us thinks we’re the winner and the other person is the loser. Since we disagree, we argue about it and I try to prove you’re wrong, and you do the same with me.

You’d think since we’re such experts at keeping score, it would be obvious who’s right and who’s not. Have you ever argued with someone and suddenly they stop and say, “Oh! Now I see! You’re right and I’m wrong! Thanks for helping me realize that!” Me either.

You can keep score in marriage and you may win, but your marriage will lose.

You can keep score with your kids, your parents, your brothers and sisters, and all the family you’ll be seeing this Thanksgiving and Christmas. And you can win, but your family will lose.

There IS another score you could keep

It’s not easy, it doesn’t feel good, and it doesn’t come naturally.

You could keep score of the debt of love you owe

Start by finding some small thing where you’ve been loved. This will sensitize you and you’ll begin to see more and more acts of love you’ve missed.

Then try to pay it back.

Let no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to love one another

Romans 13.8

Who do you owe?

It starts with your family. Your touch begins at home. But what you touch and love doesn’t end there.

Home is life’s undress rehearsal, its backroom, its dressing room

- Harriet Beecher Stowe

War can be anywhere. Within your heart, in your marriage, your home, your neighborhood, workplace, church, and all the relationships your family touches in your community, state, nation, and world.

A harvest of righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace

- James 3.18

You can blame or credit your parents and family and so can they, and back it goes proving that who you are comes from somewhere back there. And those beyond you in the future come from somewhere, too. You.

The little bit you and me might change the world? It wouldn’t show up until a hundred years after we’re dead. We’d never see it.

But it’d be there.

- From Here to Eternity

Whose love are you grateful for?

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A Family Like Yours is 31 Days of encouragement to help you appreciate, influence, and love the family you have (no matter what).

This is day 31.

You can subscribe below or at the top on the right.

We moved to Iowa and listed our house in Indiana for sale. For almost a year we paid a mortgage and rent. Not fun. Then one day I believed in Jesus. A few days later Brenda asked if I’d prayed for the house to sell.

“Uh, no.” I was new at the prayer thing. “Oh, you can actually pick what to pray for?” So I did.

The next day we got a call from our Realtor about interest in the house. Not much later it sold. From that, I was convinced God was saying, “I just want you to know what you’re dealing with here.”

I wish I could say I honored that conviction and have lived a life of prayer ever since. Ha!

Prayer is the most practical thing you can do for your family

Prayer is not abstract theory or an idea or philosophy or strategy. You think of prayer as a spiritual thing, and it is, but it’s a spiritual thing in action with practical results.

When our girls were little, Brenda began praying for their husbands. Years later it was freaky at the wedding rehearsal dinner seeing the tables with the pictures of the Nester and Chad growing up separately, thinking so that’s what he looked like and was doing when she was this age . . . and realizing Brenda was praying for him all that time without knowing who he was.

A few years ago we felt we needed to pray more consistently. So we made it as easy and automatic as we could: we don’t get up from eating together at home without praying. So most every morning (and evening) we hold hands at the table between the cereal and hard-boiled egg scraps and pray for five or ten minutes. We keep it short, simple, and consistent.

Our peace and confidence have gone way up

Our peace and confidence don’t come from getting results. Most of the time I’m surprised when my prayers are answered positively. Many are not and that seems normal.

Our peace comes from the practical act of cooperating with God in reaching out after the unseen, and knowing he will do something.

Last year we prayed for three months every day to know what to do in an area I was restless about. It was a big deal to me. I wrote bullet points on what we were praying for, and why, and printed a copy for each of us. I never got a direct answer but the restlessness ceased and I’ve moved on with peace and confidence.

Then there was that day six months ago when I wanted some family members to talk about something I thought was important. But I was busy and stressed and had no time or words to try to start a conversation. In frustration I prayed and gave it to God and headed to work. When I got home they had talked.

When the Nester and Chad made an offer on their property this past summer I felt a compulsion to pray. It seemed like an assignment. I couldn’t help myself. For ten weeks I would drive past the property or I’d park at the end of the driveway, and pray for their family and for anyone who would drive up that driveway in the future. It didn’t feel like my idea or a sacrifice - just something I needed to do.

They moved in almost two months ago. I still raise my hand in the car when I get close to the farm, symbolizing the presence of God’s hand over the property. I felt that presence from the beginning and prayer was my way of cooperating with it.

Ooops - there’s that PWD thing

You prayer life can be defeated by PWD: Prayer Warrior Disease. PWD convinces you that no matter how often or how long you pray, it’s never enough and so it is wasted and you’re a lame loser. So you’re discouraged from doing it. Seriously - this is as common as the cold.

So if you suffer from PWD here’s the cure: When you’re watching TV or a movie, during a commercial or a break, turn the sound down and pray for one minute. If you’re married, hold hands and pray out loud and thank God for your spouse. That’s ALL, stop.

Then tomorrow do the same thing and pray for something else about your family for one minute. This is the cure for PWD. Once it’s cured, you can move on with the prayer life that’s natural for you and your family.

How has prayer made a practical difference in your family?

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A Family Like Yours is 31 Days of encouragement to help you appreciate, influence, and love the family you have (no matter what).

This is day 30.

You can subscribe below or at the top on the right.

See if you can relate to this. It’s from Tullian Tchividjian’s book One Way Love: Inexhaustible Grace for an Exhausted World:

Most parents and spouses, siblings and friends—even preachers—fall prey to the illusion that real change happens when we lay down the law, exercise control, demand good performance, or offer “constructive” criticism.

We wonder why our husbands grow increasingly withdrawn over the years, why our children don’t call as much as we would like them to, why our colleagues don’t confide in us, why our congregants become relationally and emotionally detached from us.

In more cases than not, it happens because we are feeding their deep fear of judgment—by playing the judge. Our lips may be moving, but the voice they hear is that of the law.

The law may have the power to instruct and expose, but it does not have the power to inspire or create. That job is reserved for grace–grace alone.

Grace is work. Grace takes longer. Grace forces trust. But Grace wins.

If you feel overwhelmed and inadequate in your family and think if only I had the wisdom and spiritual resources of say, Billy Graham’s family, take heart. Tullian is in Billy Graham’s family. Here’s his story from his book. All the quotes are his words.

Even the ‘best’ families have big issues

I was sixteen when my parents kicked me out of the house. What started out as run-of-the-mill adolescent rebellion in my early teens had, over the course of a few short years, blossomed into a black hole of disrespect and self-centeredness that was consuming the entire family.

I would lie when I didn’t have to, push every envelope, pick fights with my siblings, carry on, and sneak around—at first in innocent ways; later in not-so-innocent ways. If someone said “black,” I would say “white.” Nothing all that terrible by the world’s standards, but given my Christian context and upbringing, it was pretty egregious.

Eventually, everyone involved reached the end of their patience, and looking back, I can’t blame them. It’s not as though my parents hadn’t tried every other option. Private school, public school, homeschool, counseling, interventions—you name it.

Anything they did just made me want to rebel more. Eventually, my lifestyle became so disruptive, the fights so brutal, that my parents were forced to say, “We love you, son, but if you’re going to continue living this way, you can’t do so under our roof.”

My parents were well loved in our community, and their friends could see the heartache they were going through with me. I remember two separate instances of people caring enough to ask them for permission to talk with me one-on-one to see if maybe they could get through to me.

The easy way: tell ’em what they’re doing wrong

The first time was early on, when I was still living at home. Their friend picked me up after school, brought me to Burger King, and read me the riot act. “Look at all that God’s given you. You’re squandering everything. You’re making your parents’ life a living hell, acting so selfishly, not considering your siblings. You go to a private school. You have this remarkable heritage. Shape up, man! Snap out of it.”

Of course, he was 100 percent right. In fact, if he had known the full truth of what I was up to (and what was in my heart), he would have had every reason to be even harsher. But in the first five minutes of this guy talking to me, I could tell where it was going, and I just tuned out. As far as I was concerned, it was white noise. I could not wait for it to be over and for him to drop me back off at home.

This first friend was the voice of the law. He was articulating the standard that I was falling short of—what I should have been doing and who I should have been being—and he couldn’t have been more correct. The condemnation was entirely justified. His words gave an accurate description of who I was at that moment.

But that’s the curious thing about the law and judgment in general: it can tell us who we are, it can tell us the right thing to do, but it cannot inspire us to do that thing or be that person. In fact, it often creates the opposite reaction than the one that is intended. It certainly did for me! I don’t blame the man in question—he was trying to do the right thing. It’s just that his methods completely backfired.

The risky way: woo their heart

The second experience happened about a year and a half later, and by this time I was out of the house. This man called me and said, “I’d love to meet with you.” And I thought, Oh no, another one of my parents’ friends trying to set me straight. But I didn’t want to make things any worse between my parents and me, and the free meal didn’t sound too bad either, so I agreed to get together with him.

Once we were at the restaurant, he just looked at me and said, “Listen, I know you’re going through a tough time, and I know life must seem very confusing right now. And I just want to tell you that I love you, I’m here for you, and I think God’s going to do great things with you. Here’s my phone number. If you ever need anything, call me. If you want to tell me something you don’t feel comfortable telling anybody else, call me. I just want you to know that I’m here for you.”

And then he switched the subject and started talking about sports. That guy—the second guy—is still a friend of mine to this day. He will forever be marked in my personal history as an example of amazing grace.

The law may expose bad behavior, but only grace can woo the heart.

You can’t change the people in your family. But you can help make it better. Or worse.

Any first-hand experience with law and grace in your family?

* * * * *

A Family Like Yours is 31 Days of encouragement to help you appreciate, influence, and love the family you have (no matter what).

This is day 29.

You can subscribe below or at the top on the right.

I told you my wife sold a desk for $100. The guy offered $115. She said no I’ll take less. Get it? The seller talked the buyer down.

She did it because she had a good feeling about him because he was meek and didn’t negotiate or push.

I saw the same thing on American Pickers recently. The seller took Mike and Frank’s first offer almost every time. Once in a while he negotiated a bit. Mike and Frank were pumped at the great stuff they got.

At the end of the show before they left, they gave the seller $400. “You gave us some awesome deals. Take this; we’re still going to make some good money.” They had to argue with the seller to get him to take the cash.

Generosity is built into you and your family

Generosity causes people to want to reciprocate.

Of course the mess of life interferes with the reciprocation. The mess of suspicion, fear, anger, busyness, bitterness, fatigue. It’s not an automatic response. You don’t always see reciprocation, and when you do it’s not always right away.

But be confident that when you are generous you are cooperating and trusting a great law of creation that is built into humans. God has wired us to be sensitive to generosity so that we might be sensitive to his generosity to us in Christ.

Generosity is part of God’s image and he has stamped us with his image. The image is corrupted by the fall and we’re all now naturally selfish, but the seed and echo of generosity remains. You can water the seed with a little generosity to get it to grow.

To fight the voice in you that says ‘good idea, do it later,’ start small

Find the teeniest least noticeable way to be generous to your family, and try to do it so they will never consciously be aware. Bite your tongue. Smile when you don’t feel like it. Subtly step aside. Take the smaller piece. Be gentle for a second when you’re normally hard.

You know your family - try to make the generousness small but meaningful to that person. Keeping it small and unnoticeable helps you get started.

My brother mentioned yesterday how he tries to control trees and shrubs on his property. He said no matter how hard he works, plants will always do what they are wired to do, even growing through concrete over time. He tries to not fight the plant but to cooperate with what it wants to do anyway.

When you do small consistent acts of generosity for your family, you are cooperating with something big that is already at work in them. Over time they can begin to reciprocate. Then, when you begin to get a little momentum going, some good things can happen.

Whoever sows sparingly will reap sparingly, and whoever sows bountifully will also reap bountifully - 2 Corinthians 9.6

What’s the smallest, most invisible act of generosity you could do for a family member today?

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A Family Like Yours is 31 Days of encouragement to help you appreciate, influence, and love the family you have (no matter what).

This is day 28.

You can subscribe below or at the top on the right.

If you’ve ever disappointed your parents or spouse or kids so much that you were grieved and so were they, then you understand a bit about the influence of the heart.

The influence of the hand cares mostly about results. Just git er done.

The influence of the head cares mostly about persuasion and convincing. Results matter but the head wants you to want to.

The influence of the heart cares mostly about your relationship

Results might not be worth it if getting there comes between you and the other person.

The other person can be your whole family or part of your family. Or maybe it is just one person.

What would it take to have the kind of relationship with someone that made them not want to do anything that hindered that relationship? Where lack of results is not as painful as something coming between you?

If you have anything close to that kind of relationship with even one person, you know the kinds of things it takes.

Things like:

Grace.

Patience.

Generosity.

Encouragement.

Losing.

Jesus. Jesus. Jesus.

Humor.

And when you make the relationship the most important thing, guess what? As a by-product you get the results you wanted to get by pushing.

Or maybe it seems that way. Maybe the relationship changes the results you want; now you want results that are from - and that enhance - your relationship.

It’s like a romance - slowly over time the heart connection grows until there’s something special between you that becomes more important than anything else.

In God there is no hunger that needs to be filled, only plenteousness that desires to give - C.S. Lewis

That’s how it’s worked for Brenda and me

I may have a preference for which house we buy, but that preference weighs far less than my desire for her to be happy. And my desire for her happiness doesn’t come from some painful sacrifice. We’ve been together so long, and I love her so much, that my happiness has merged with hers.

Sometimes helping her be happy feels so good it feels selfish! Not always of course, but our relationship is characterized by this kind of thing.

And she’s the same way. You might think this is a result of forty years of work, but for the first twenty years we were clueless and went in the hole of selfish negativity and trying to influence each other with the hand.

Ten years later we were out of the hole and on our way to a decent level of unselfishness with the head and more of the heart.

It takes time but not forever. If you’re in the hole you can get out. Ten years from now your family could be fighting over insisting the other person gets their way. If you start now.

Who in your family do you have such a heart for, that if being right came between you, you’d rather be wrong?

* * * * *

A Family Like Yours is 31 Days of encouragement to help you appreciate, influence, and love the family you have (no matter what).

This is day 25.

You can subscribe below or at the top on the right.

Influencing your family with the hand feels pushy and heavy to others. The hand doesn’t much care what anyone thinks.

The head definitely cares what you think

That’s how the head influences.

When you want your family to go to Golden Corral instead of Ruth’s Chris, and you talk about how you can spend the savings at the Putt-Putt, and how the bourbon chicken and shrimp salad rocks at GC, and Think of all the choices! There’s something for everybody! then you’re influencing with the head.

The head cares what people think and influences by convincing and persuading you towards what it believes is best. It respects you.

The head wants you happy

The head wants you sold on it. When you say, “That makes sense. I’m convinced. OK,” then the head wins. Everybody’s happy.

The hand would just push or intimidate or manipulate you into it, and then be the only one happy.

Persuading and convincing with respect is challenging. It takes sensitivity and patience. It takes time and might not turn out the way you want. You can panic inside and easily turn the head into the hand without realizing it.

But, when you persuade with respect and finally get to where you’re going it feels good to you and to everybody else.

It’s difficult but worth it.

Who in your family influences with persuasion and respect? How is your relationship with them different than with a pusher?

There’s another way of influencing. Even more difficult, but awesomely wonderful for you and your family. That’s tomorrow.

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A Family Like Yours is 31 Days of encouragement to help you appreciate, influence, and love the family you have (no matter what).

This is day 24.

You can subscribe below or at the top on the right.

You have hopes and dreams for your family. You want your family to be all it can be. You want closeness, more love, less drama. You want reconciliation and healing.

You also want your family to feel good to you.

So how do you go there? How do you move in that direction? How do you influence your family?

One way you can influence your family: the hand

But the hand is pushy

It might overtly push. It might subtly manipulate. The hand just wants its way. That doesn’t mean the hand wants a bad thing. It can be a very good thing. We’re talking about how you go about getting it, how you influence your family towards it.

The hand influences by fear of punishment, or fear of harm or negative consequences. Punishment does not have to mean the hand will actually strike you; it just means it’s not worth it to resist.

You can get people to do what you want, especially if you develop the skill persistently over the years. It doesn’t matter if anyone actually wants to or is convinced. Results now are what matters.

The hand is the easiest way to try to influence

It’s the default of men, since we’re wired for strength and protection and stuff. Everybody likes to go with their default because it’s easy.

But anyone can master the hand. The hand is not just the domain of dad and sometimes mom. Kids learn pretty quick how to get their way. Siblings gravitate to it, and so do some of those cousins and relatives heading your way this Thanksgiving.

The hand is not artistic or relational. Art and relationships involve mystery and patience. The hand already knows what’s best and thinks you should too.

The hand can work, but that doesn’t mean it wins

It doesn’t win if relationships are harmed. You can win the battle and lose the war. The war is won in relationships.

You can fool yourself when you push and get your way with family members. It feels like you won, and winning feels good. But it’s empty if family members just decide it’s in their short-term best interest to obey the hand, that it’s not worth it to resist. They don’t like it and they don’t like you.

Majoring on the hand will affect your relationships and your influence in all other areas.

I don’t like talking about the hand because it feels negative and icky, but that’s the nature of the hand: it doesn’t care much what people think or how they feel. That’s why you save it for last, for when the damage is already bad and something has to change. Then meet the hand.

When have you been pushed towards a good thing, but in a way you resisted? How did it affect your relationship with the pusher?

Tomorrow: a better way that wins more often.

* * * * *

A Family Like Yours is 31 Days of encouragement to help you appreciate, influence, and love the family you have (no matter what).

This is day 23.

You can subscribe below or at the top on the right.