Faith in Families

One of the principles that “successful marriages and families” are established on, according to the Proclamation on the Family, is faith.  What examples of “success” in family life that came from faith do we see in the scriptures?  One is the story of Rebekah and Isaac.  The servant of Abraham went to find a righteous wife for Isaac, and came to Rebekah in Haran.  After the brief encounter with her at the well and the servant’s brief discussion with Rebekah’s father Laban, the servant requested that she be Isaac’s wife.  Laban responded, “The thing proceedeth from the Lord….  Rebekah is before thee, take her, and go, and let her be thy master’s son’s wife” (Genesis 24:50-51).  The servant requested that Rebekah leave immediately with him, and they asked her what she would do.  She responded simply, “I will go” (Genesis 24:58).  She had just met this servant, and she was being asked to leave her family, go marry a man she did not know, and live in a place she likely had never been to.  And yet she went in an act of great faith, likely trusting in her father’s inspiration that it was a thing “from the Lord.”  Because of her faith, she and Isaac continued the Abrahamic line and fulfilled the promise given to Rebekah: “Be thou the mother of thousands of millions” (Genesis 24:60).  I think a second scriptural example of faith that provided the foundation of a successful family was the trust of Joseph, the step-father of Jesus.  After being espoused to Mary and finding out that she was pregnant, he was ready to “put her away privily” when he had a dream in which “the angel of the Lord” told him to take Mary to wife and that the child was conceived of the Holy Ghost (Matt. 1:19-20).  This was different than Mary’s experience: she actually saw the angel while awake; Joseph had a dream while asleep.  I have to wonder if when he woke up from that dream if he didn’t question if it was really true.  He was being told that his espoused wife was pregnant while remaining pure, a seeming impossibility.  And yet he trusted and put great faith in Mary and the Lord to do everything that was required of him.  When he had another dream telling him to “flee into Egypt” with his new little family, he did not hesitate and saved the life of the young Savior through his faithful obedience.  I’m not sure that Christ needed examples to be taught, but if that played any part in his education surely the great faith of Joseph that He saw while growing up was as powerful as that of any other.  These are just two scriptural examples showing the power of faith to bless families.