MENTORING ~ Part 2

It is a delight to share with you again after a two-month absence. Have you entwined your heart with someone to mentor? I do hope so.

It is interesting to know that entire companies are recognizing the value of mentoring to the point of establishing internal mentoring structures to ensure that senior executives will coach young men and women employees. Interesting. Isn’t that a wakeup call to us to follow the scriptural mandate of mentoring so that the legacy of godly living is passed on to the next generation?

In many cases the home is the most neglected when it comes to mentoring. Committed Christians neglect home ministry! What should be our mentoring priority? Our ministry within the family unit. It seems that we so often think of ministry as something we do outside the walls of our homes or under a church umbrella. To establish a solid, God-honoring unit requires more love, patience, and time than our busy, self-centered schedule seem to permit.

The good Samaritan account of Luke 10:29-37 has had a tremendous impact on me as I ponder the home unit. The lawyer’s question (Luke 10: 25-28), whether sincere or an attempt to trick Jesus, sets the background for my thoughts about the home. He asked a very pointed, thought-provoking question, “Who is my neighbor?” As the instructive parable unfolds, Jesus makes it clear that a neighbor is someone in need. Someone who is hurting. A neighbor needs a mentor! A “someone” who will listen, who will feel, who will care with compassion and love. Someone who lives the virtues of spiritual fruit — love, joy, peace, long-suffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control (Gal. 5:22).

Perhaps it might appear that I am stretching the Samaritan account. I rather think that I am extending it to another justifiable application. One reason that homes are crumbling is the laxity in neighborliness within its walls.The inhabitants are different people inside and outside its door. In my Young’s concordance are well over 100 Bible references to the word neighbor that is listed in categories of “near,” “friend,” “companion,” etc. May I make an assignment?  Look up, read, ask the Holy Spirit to help you, as parents, example and teach true neighborliness in the home, which then becomes a “lamp stand” to reach into your neighborhood (Luke 4:21-25).

Within the family the first mentoring ministry ought to be between husband and wife. Surprise! Never thought of that before? The home environment will be no stronger than is the husband- wife relationship. The first principle that comes to mind is “selflessness.” Ouch! Divorce incubates on selfishness. “I want my way and I am not giving in.” Sounds rather childish, doesn’t it? And everybody suffers.

The word “activity” is the first to flash across my mind as a detriment to neighborliness within the home. Please spend some time evaluating the amount of time that the family spends together as a sharing relational unit talking with each other, laughing together, playing games together, eating around the table together, uniting in serious, deep Bible study together.

Once when John Foster Dulles phoned the Douglas MacArthur II home asking for “Doug,” Mrs. MacArthur snapped back irately, “MacArthur is where MacArthur always is weekdays, Saturday, Sundays and nights—in that office!” Within minutes, MacArthur got a telephone order from Dulles. “Go home at once. Your home front is crumbling.”      
                              “A CHARGE TO KEEP WE HAVE; A GOD TO GLORIFY.”