Are You Experiencing a 'Blow-Up' in Your Family?
by Dennis Rainey

For a fire-fighter, one of the most terrible phrases in the English language is "blow-up." This occurs when a manageable forest fire suddenly turns into an inferno that rages through the grass and trees at up to 30 miles per hour.

To me, "blow-up" is an appropriate description of what's happened during the last decade at the heart of American society. A searing fireball of destruction is engulfing a priceless part of our culture—the family.

Early in 1996, for example, I spoke to 700 college students at a Campus Crusade for Christ conference in Dallas. When I asked those who had been affected by divorce — through their immediate or extended family — to stand, 80 percent of the audience rose to their feet.

Afterward, a young man came forward to talk to me about the divorce of his father, who had been a leading pastor in an evangelical denomination. "Dennis, my dad was my hero," he said. "He taught me everything I know. And now he's gone. I'm the only one left in my family that is still walking with God." He pleaded, "What do I do?"

Other young men and women stopped me to talk about their stories of divorce, abuse, and dysfunction. They felt paralyzed.

Far too many Christians today feel this same type of impotence. They are full of fear—burned by the heat of our cultural blow-up.

If you are in the spiritual majority who have lost hope and courage, take heart: You can make a difference!

A fire-fighter cannot outrun a blow-up, but he might survive one if he ignites a fire of his own to burn the area around him before the fireball reaches him. If you feel threatened by the fires of today's culture, it's time to start a fire of your own. And you do that by returning to God's Word, experiencing Him on a daily basis, and changing the way you are living,

You see, a Family Reformation doesn't start in the culture. It begins in your heart. In your life. In your home.