5 Timeless Truths to Help You Navigate Your Crazy Family

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Have you ever said to yourself, “Why in the world am I related to these people?” Are you convinced that you are the only sane person in your family and everyone else is crazy? Don’t worry, everyone in your family is thinking the same thing about you.

Dysfunctional families seem to be the rule, not the exception. One of the reasons we love classic movies such as A Christmas Story and National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation is because those crazy families remind us of our own crazy families. It seems like every family has at least one Cousin Eddie. So, rather than just survive your family, how can you thrive in your family? It starts by recognizing five ancient truths God has established about family. These five timeless truths will hopefully give you a little better perspective about family and hopefully can begin to help you better navigate your crazy family.

The family is the oldest institution in the created world.

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In Genesis 1 God created the heavens and the earth. In Genesis 2, God created the family. You can’t get any older than that.

Then the Lord God made a woman from the rib he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man. The man said, “This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called ‘woman,’ for she was taken out of man.” That is why a man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife, and they become one flesh. Genesis 2:22-24

Before schools, before governments, even before organized religion, God created the family. Don’t miss the significance of that. There is a fellowship and relationship intrinsic in the human family that reflects the nature of the Godhead in the Trinity: God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit.

So as much as people try and dismiss the importance of the family unit, you can’t. We were literally created to exist within the family unit. The family is the oldest institution in the created world.

The reason your family is crazy is because sin has fundamentally broken humanity.

You can get mad that your family is crazy, but you shouldn’t be surprised. When sin entered the world in Genesis 3, it broke humanity and the created world at the most fundamental level. For those who have ever dealt with a natural disaster, you’ve experienced the collateral damage of a creation itself that has been fundamentally broken by humanity.

Look at Romans 8:20-21 says about creation, which includes everything from natural disasters to wars to your crazy family:

For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the freedom and glory of the children of God. Romans 8:20-21

Creation itself is in bondage to decay. It’s been fundamentally broken by sin. And all of creation eagerly awaits its liberation, when Jesus comes back and makes things right and creates a new heaven and new earth. That’s one of the greatest hopes we have as Christians, that there is a better future awaiting us, but it hasn’t come yet. We’re still in the midst of a world broken by sin, and that sin has broken our families. That’s why our families are crazy.

God placed you in your specific family on purpose for a purpose.

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This is one of the biggest questions we have. Why my family? Especially when the family down the street seems so normal. Why am I stuck inside such a crazy and dysfunctional family? First off, there are no perfect families. Some families just do a better job at hiding the crazy, but we’re all dysfunctional at some level.

But look at how the apostle Paul describes the sovereignty of God when he’s preaching to a bunch of skeptics in first century Greece:

“The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by human hands. And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything. Rather, he himself gives everyone life and breath and everything else. From one man he made all the nations, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he marked out their appointed times in history and the boundaries of their lands. God did this so that they would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from any one of us." Acts 17:24-27

God is absolutely sovereign. The reason you were born in this age and not in the Middle Ages is because God determined it to be that way. You are not an accident, no matter what your parents might have told you.

And God placed you within your specific family for a specific reason. Why, I might not be able to know and you might not figure it out this side of heaven, don’t ever doubt that God has you in your specific family for a purpose.

So instead of spending time complaining about your crazy family, maybe we should spend more time making the most of the family we have, because we’re not there by mistake.

Every single person in your family, crazy or not, is a child of the Most High God, created in His image and loved unconditionally by Him. Whether they know him or not, God loves them. And perhaps the reason God has you in your specific family, as dysfunctional as they might be, is because you are the lighthouse of hope that God wants to use to save your family.

You might be the only Jesus your family only sees. And even though the outside world can’t see past the surface, your family knows the real you. And if you can shine the light of Jesus even through the most difficult moments of life, then you can be a part of changing the eternal destiny of your family. That’s all the purpose you need.

Family isn’t meant to make you happy as much as it’s meant to make you holy.

Look at how Paul describes the family relationship between husband and wife:

Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. Ephesians 5:25-27

Husbands are instructed to love their wives in the same way Christ loved the church. Jesus loved us so much that he sacrificed himself to make us holy. Many times, we get frustrated with our families because we’re under the mistaken notion that family is there to serve us, to meet our needs, to make us happy.

Maybe as a child you were spoiled rotten and you never outgrew it, and you’re under the assumption that your family exists solely to meet your needs. Nope. The family is there to make you holy, not just to make you happy.

What does that mean? Well, you become holy when you become more like Jesus. What are the best opportunities you have to become more loving, to become more patient, to practice forgiveness, to sacrifice yourself for others, whether they return that sacrifice or not? Your family. If you approach family as there more to make you holy than to make you happy, then you’ll have the frame of mind necessary to navigate your family.

Think about it this way: if couples approached marriage this way, how many marriages would it save, how many children would be spared the pain of divorce? If couples think that marriage is solely about happiness, then it’s justifiable to divorce when your spouse doesn’t make you as happy as you think you deserve. But if you approach marriage is an opportunity to make you holy, it gives you the strength and faith necessary to endure when times get tough.

The beauty of God’s grace shines brightest against the backdrop of the most dysfunctional families.

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As dysfunctional as the families were in the Old Testament, God still used them in incredible ways. As dysfunctional as Jacob’s family was, God still used those twelve brothers to become the twelve tribes of Israel.

Go read Matthew 1. It’s a list of ancestors, a genealogy of Jesus. If you go back and read the stories of the four women mentioned (Rahab, Tamar, Ruth, Bathsheba) in the Old Testament, you’ll find a laundry list of dysfunctional families. And yet these were the families that God intentionally chose to be the line of Jesus.