We have talked throughout this book about opening spiritual eyes. About renewing the mind, walking in the Spirit, putting on the armor, choosing peace. But where does that start? How does a person learn to live that way?
For most of us, it does not begin with a book or a sermon. It begins at home. It begins with the people who were there before we knew what any of it meant — modeling faith in front of us, praying in the storms, correcting us in the car, saying the things that would stay with us for the rest of our lives. Family is one of the primary ways God opens eyes to see. Someone had to show you first.
Family matters deeply to God. Not as an afterthought. Not as one institution among many. From the very beginning, before governments, before organized religion, before any other structure existed — God made a family. A man, a woman, a home. It was the first thing He built after He made us.
And I have watched the attack on it my entire life.
The confusion about what the family unit is supposed to look like. The distorted picture of marriage the world keeps selling. The way entire generations have been subtly trained to think it is somehow uncool to be close to your parents, your siblings, your grandparents — as if loving your family is embarrassing. I remember that pressure growing up. Peers acting like loyalty to family was something to be ashamed of. I never bought it, but I watched others drift because of it.
And I have seen what that drift costs.
I have seen people holding enormous regret, only realizing how much their family meant to them the moment someone was gone. The words that never got said. The time that never got spent. The relationship that got put off until there was nothing left to put off to.
Do not wait for that moment. Family is an incredible gift from God, and it deserves to be treated like one.
Why God Created the Family
To understand why the family is under such relentless attack, you have to understand what God designed it to be.
God Himself is relational. Father, Son, and Spirit — three in one, existing in eternal relationship, in perfect love. When He made humanity in His image, He made us relational too. And the first relationship He established was the family. Not as a social convenience, but as a reflection of who He is.
The love between a husband and wife is meant to mirror the love between Christ and the Church. The love between a parent and child is meant to give us a picture of how God relates to us — how He sees us, protects us, disciplines us, delights in us. Family is not just a practical arrangement. It is a living image of God's character on the earth.
"So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. And God blessed them. And God said to them, 'Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it.'" Genesis 1:27–28 ESV
Be fruitful and multiply. This was not just about having children. It was about spreading God's order across the earth. The family was designed to be the primary vehicle through which God's truth, His character, and His ways get passed from one generation to the next.
"You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise." Deuteronomy 6:5–7 ESV
God did not say teach these things in the synagogue once a week. He said in your house. When you sit, when you walk, when you lie down, when you rise. He designed the home to be the place where faith gets formed — not just explained, but lived out in front of the next generation every single day.
Family is also meant to be a covering. A safe place. A space where you are known — all your flaws, all your failures, all your mess — and loved anyway. Where you can grow, make mistakes, be corrected, and still belong. There is something profound about being loved by people who know everything about you. It is one of the closest pictures we have of how God loves us.
Why the Enemy Targets It
If family is where truth gets passed down, then destroying the family is the most efficient strategy the enemy has for cutting off the next generation from God.
Break the family, break the chain.
It is not complicated. If children grow up without the covering of a healthy family — without parents modeling faith, without a home where God is honored, without the daily passing down of truth — they enter the world without a foundation. And a person without a foundation is far easier to deceive.
The attack on family roles, the confusion about what marriage is, the culture that mocks commitment and glamorizes dysfunction — none of it is accidental. It is targeted. The enemy understands better than most people do what the family was designed to produce, and he has been working to dismantle it for a very long time.
"Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour." 1 Peter 5:8 ESV
And there is something else worth saying here. The damage does not stop with the family that breaks. The brokenness creates vulnerabilities that follow people for years — sometimes for a lifetime. The insecurities that come from growing up without a father or mother. The identity questions. The wounds around trust and love and belonging that get carried into every relationship that follows.
I cannot place myself in that pain. I have not lived it. But I have watched it from close enough to know that it is real, and that the enemy knows exactly how to find those wounds and use them. A broken family does not just hurt the people inside it. It creates open doors that the enemy walks through for generations afterward.
This is why a strong, healthy, God-centered family is a threat. Not just to the enemy's plans for those individuals — but to his plans for the culture. A family that loves God, passes down truth, and raises the next generation with their eyes open is one of the most dangerous things on earth to the kingdom of darkness.
What Was Passed Down
I am one of the fortunate ones. I grew up in a family that passed something real down to me. My parents and grandparents shaped who I am in ways I am still discovering. My siblings are people I can count on when everything goes wrong. There is something deeply encouraging about being known completely — flaws and failures and all — and still being loved. That is what a family is supposed to feel like. And it is one of the closest pictures I know of how God loves us.
I want to share a few things that were passed down to me, because I think they are worth passing on.
My dad made sure we read the Bible as a family growing up. I will be honest — I did not always love it at the time. But I am so grateful for it now. He built something into us that I did not fully understand until I was older. The Word of God was not optional in our house. It was part of the rhythm of our lives.
He also taught us never to make fun of others. I remember being in the car as a kid, laughing with my siblings about a beat-up old car on the road. My dad corrected us immediately. He said we had no idea what that person's situation was, and that everything we have comes from God — so when we see someone who looks like they are struggling, we pray for them, not laugh at them.
That stuck with me. And so did this: every time we passed an ambulance or heard a siren, my dad would pray right then. Not later. Right then. I still do it today. The moment I hear a siren, my first instinct is to pray for whoever is in that situation. That was passed down to me in a car, on an ordinary day, by a father who lived what he believed.
My mom taught us to pray in every circumstance. Not just in the quiet moments, but in the storms. When news would come that a literal storm was heading our way and everyone around her was anxious, she would pray. And I cannot tell you how many times that storm dissipated or turned away. You can call it coincidence if you want. I call it a mother who believed God listens and acted like it.
She prayed over our family's property for years against venomous snakes. Our neighbors find them regularly. We never do. The one time one appeared, it was found coming on to our property and taken care of before it could cause harm to anyone. I do not believe that is by chance.
But the thing I remember most from what she taught me is simpler than any of that.
When I was in a bad mood, when I was upset, when I was choosing to let the weight of something pull me under — she would look at me and say it plainly:
Choose joy.
Everything is a choice, she would tell me. I must choose joy. I must choose peace. I must choose to be thankful. I must choose to walk in love. We are either walking with God or we are walking with the enemy. There is no neutral ground.
She was right. And in a way, that is what this entire book has been about. We are either opening our eyes to see or we are not. We are either renewing our minds or we are not. We are either walking with God or we are not. It is ultimately a choice that each of us as individuals must make.
That truth was handed to me in a kitchen, by a mother who lived it. That is how God designed truth to travel — not just through sermons and books, but through the people closest to us, in the ordinary moments of everyday life.
"Train up a child in the way he should go; even when he is old he will not depart from it." Proverbs 22:6 ESV
To Those Whose Family Was Broken
I want to speak directly to those who did not have this. To those who grew up without a father, without a mother, or without the covering a family is supposed to provide. To those whose home was a place of pain rather than safety. To those who experienced abuse, abandonment, or the quiet devastation of a family that simply was not there.
Your pain is real. The wounds left by a broken family are not small, and I am not going to tell you to simply get over them. What I will say is this: those wounds were never meant to be yours to carry forever.
God is described throughout Scripture as a Father to the fatherless. He sees what was taken from you. He is not indifferent to it. And He is able to do what no earthly family could ever fully do — love you completely, know you entirely, and never leave.
"Father of the fatherless and protector of widows is God in his holy habitation." Psalm 68:5 ESV
And there is something else. The pain you have carried — the things you understand about brokenness that others who grew up with healthy families will never fully grasp — that is not wasted. Paul says that God comforts us in all our troubles so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received.
The person who grew up without a father has the ability to reach someone drowning in that same pain in a way that someone who has never felt it simply cannot. The person who survived a broken home can walk into a room full of people who feel like their family is beyond repair and speak with a credibility that no theology degree produces.
Your story is not a liability. In the hands of God, it is one of your most powerful tools.
And to those who have a beautiful family — who have what others only longed for — do not take it for granted. Be present. Be intentional. Pass something real down. Because what you build in your home will outlive you, and what you fail to build will leave a gap that someone in the next generation will spend years trying to fill.
Family is one of God's greatest gifts. Treat it like one.
Now You Are The One.
My dad gave me eyes to see by reading the Word in front of me every day before I understood why it mattered. My mom gave me eyes to see by praying at storms, praying over property, teaching me that the spiritual world is more real than what we can touch. My grandma gave me eyes to see by living with a peace that made no sense to the people around her until they understood where it came from.
They were not just teaching lessons. They were showing me how to see.
And now that privilege belongs to you and me.
It does not require you to be a parent. Your nieces and nephews are watching you. Your siblings are watching you. The younger people in your life — the ones who look up to you whether you realize it or not — are taking notes on how you handle the hard moments, how you talk about God, whether what you say you believe actually shows up in how you live.
You have an incredible opportunity to pour into them. Not just to tell them what is true, but to show them. To be the person who corrects them gently when they are heading somewhere wrong. To be the one who prays when everyone else panics. To be the one who says — choose joy — and means it, and lives it, so that one day they will say it to someone else.
The eyes to see that were opened in you — pass them on. In the ordinary moments. In the car. In the kitchen. In the way you respond when life gets hard. That is how God designed truth to travel. Not just from a page, but from a life.
What are you passing down?