You know how inspirational speakers will tell you that families that eat at least one meal together lower their children's chances of ending up in jail by 70%. This isn't a real statistic by the way. I'm just making it up, but do you know how they say things like that? Or they say, children who spend more than two hours a day on their phones increase their chances of suicide and depression by 40%. Again, I'm making up stats here. But have you heard these sort of things?
And then do you feel your heart start to hammer inside as you to worry about how often you sit down and eat together as a family or how much time you allow your kids to play video games?
The take-away from these sort of inspirational speakers is usually: so eat more with your family or reduce screen time, as if doing these things would safeguard us against the undesirable.
But what if this is all backwards?
What if it's not the eating together or limited screen time that prevents depression or substance abuse, but rather, that eating together is simply a sign of a healthy family. The eating together is a demonstration of the consideration and love a family has for one another. It's the consideration and love that helps lower suicide and substance abuse rates and such, not the eating together.
Eating together to save my children from jail is like painting a plant to keep it green. Plants need sun and water and vitamins to produce green foliage, not paint. Likewise, the way to cultivate a healthy family isn't to eat together or get off the screens, but rather to actually love each other.
We simply confuse the effect with the cause when we hear stats of this kind. Or rather, the seller, for so often these stats are given by people who are trying to sell us something, attributes the effects to the wrong cause.
This is nothing new. We have been doing this ever since God told us what righteous living looks like. As soon as he said, "Don't steal," we thought not stealing would make us righteous in God's eyes and thus get us a good life. When he said, "Remember the Sabbath and keep it holy," the religious leaders outlined just what they thought that meant, and, by following those rules they thought they had met God's demands, thus deserving a fruitful and pleasant life. They expected green foliage by painting their leaves just like we might expect to produce good kids by eating dinner with them.
The truth is there is no surefire safeguard against "bad" kids, divorce, depression, suicide or substance abuse because in the end we are not machines that produce definite results when we put in a certain code. In the end, people still veer off their own direction.
The only guarantee in this life is our own peace and joy and hope. And those are all things we don't get by acting peaceful or painting on a joyful face or pretending to be hopeful. We get those things by being connected to the source of peace, joy, and hope. Like a plant put into good soil, we live vibrant healthy lives by digging our roots down into a relationship with God through Jesus Christ.
More on this relationship with Christ: Digging up the Roots.
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