There are a few benefits of writing. One of which is that after writing, I sort out exactly where I am on a subject. It causes me to cultivate deliberateness. This is good, because it makes evident the weaknesses of my argument and challenges me to look at the thing objectively. Another side benefit is that if I am unable to maintain objectivity and find myself not being completely biblical, it is usual that someone will point this out to me. And for this, I’m grateful. Whatever the case, thinking over the reasons behind our actions is often a good exercise.

When my husband and I married eight years ago, we began the process of developing a family culture with its own identity. We looked at what the Bible had to say about living, and from that, developed a family mission statement that hangs over the fireplace in our family room. This is not to say that we were rejecting tradition outright, because traditions that stand the test of time usually have valuable merit. However, there are many discrepancies, traditions, or habits, if you will, that exist in every family that are —deliberately or non-deliberately– accepted and adopted.

What we set out to do was analyze our lifestyle and make adjustments based on whether that fit into the family culture we were trying to create. For example, in many families across America, it is a habit to eat dinner while watching TV. Now that we had our own family of two, what kind of habits did we want to create? Were we even going to have a TV? What kind of lifestyle and traditions were we going to begin that would help us best fulfill what we believe God called our family to do (which is, to bring Him glory)?

I submit that it’s possible to glorify God while eating dinner and watching TV (so long as the programming is wholesome and edifying). Some may argue for or against this, but the point is that for our family, we felt that eating together at the table and making sure that our TV was a rare guest at other times was the best way to develop the family culture that we were trying to create. This is just a miscellaneous example, as the reason for my saying this is not to tell anyone how to eat their dinner. Moreover, these are not hard rules in our family, but rather, a general idea of how the day usually goes. Since every family is unique, glorifying God in our habits and traditions will look differently among Christian families.

What should remain consistent, however, is that we all think deliberately about the habits we create and press toward the end of God’s glory in them.