What I’m about to leave you with will most likely be the most ignored, neglected, and probably hated article you will read. What I’m going to say is the most overlooked aspect of the average person’s life, but it is most important second only to your eternal salvation. This will be primarily directed at the males, because if your families do not survive, it is your fault. One thing the old testament military and any member of the current military will tell you is that when you are in charge, you take the blame for the failure. Most men in America, like those in most every other country in the world, are failing our family, failing God, and failing our country.
We, men, think that 90 percent of the time if we provide for our family our job is over. We’re wrong. The first reason your prepping or whatever you want to call it is useless is because you’re placing your trust in items rather than in Jesus Christ. I’m not here to preach, I assure you. All I’m trying to do is save you and your family. If you do not know Jesus Christ as your personal savior, now is the time to get that right. Whatever hill you climb, whatever goal you reach is completely useless if you spend your eternity burning in hell. The book of Romans says, “Whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.” If you believe Jesus is the true Son of God, born of a virgin, lived a sinless life, died on the cross, and was resurrected three days later, and that you are a sinner deserving of hell, and you think God is telling you to get saved right now, you can be saved. How? Ask God to save you, and then place your trust in the shed blood of Jesus Christ– Heaven’s spotless lamb– to save you. He alone can save you. Do that and you can and will, as per the word of God, be saved. Now even if you are saved, it’s not the tools, the gadgets, the freeze-dried food that will keep you and your family alive in the economic collapse; it is the grace of God. If He were to remove His hand right now, you’d be dead. You’re breathing His air. He’s keeping you tethered to the planet right now. If He removed His hand, you’d be dead. So, instead of trusting freeze-dried food, guns, and Advil to save your life, why not trust Jesus?
Now, I’m not saying any of the prepping stuff is wrong. You should put back food, weapons, ammunition, medication, silver, and gold, but don’t trust them. The second reason your family won’t survive is you’re confused. Simply, you don’t know what you’re doing. Now, you can read 100 “how-to” articles a week to get all kinds of knowledge, but again you’re not focusing on what’s important. Knowledge is important, I know that. An idiot won’t survive without an instruction manual, but a family won’t survive purely based on head knowledge. You need a relationship with your family. We talk about coming together, pooling our resources, and most of our families can’t even sit together at a table and have a meal. I’m willing to bet over a fifth of the deaths in America will not be because of a lack of food, or water, or medicine. It’ll be because people simply give up. Why? Their cell phones are dead. There will be no more video games, no computer, and when the center of your universe is gone, you’ll just simply quit. Most Americans are addicted to their cell phones, or facebook, or pinterest, and that is pathetic. The only way most Americans know how to communicate is by a text message. When the phones are gone, they won’t know how to communicate. If we can’t carry on a face-to-face conversation with someone for more than ten minutes, how are we supposed to spend months and years together? Additionally, how do we do it in the most dangerous, stressfull times this country has ever faced?
Now, we can communicate with our friends and our coworkers, but often times the most important people in our lives– our family, especially our immediate family, who are the ones we spend everyday with– are the hardest to reach. Your immediate family, your brothers, sisters, sons, daughters, and especially your wife are the most important people in your life, by God’s standards, not mine. The average American family sits down around a television and watch some filthy, nasty movie, straight from the devil’s hell while eating a meal together. Then, they call that bonding. In the rare event a family does sit at a table to eat, often, the daughters stare at a cell phone in their hand, the sons have a video game, and the husband and wife are silent because they’re still mad over something that happened a week ago. I don’t care what your wife is like, it is the husband’s job to love her and love her with every fiber of his being. If you could sum up what the Bible says about the family, you could do it with these six words– husbands love, wives submit, children obey. A man once said, “The man is the head of the home, the wife is the heart of the home, and the children are the hope of the home.” I remind you that while you neglect your children, the television, the computer, and the school system are shaping who they are. Whether you survive the economic collapse or not, you will one day turn this country over to them. Men need to have a real relationship with their families, moreso than with the buyers on craiglist or their sports buddies. Their most important and main relationship needs to be with their wife and children.
The next reason your family won’t survive is that we, men in particular, are selfish. We care more about our needs than the needs of those around us. Now, some of you are scratching your head thinking, “I’m working thirty hours overtime to put back so that my family can survive the collapse. Now is that selfish?” You’re concerned about the future, which isn’t wrong. Proverbs says, “A people without a vision perishes.” So, planning for the future is important, but not so important you neglect today. You can concern yourself so much with the future and work so much to put back to the extent it can become a god to you. We always make time for what we care about most. This isn’t only prepping; it can be anything– vacations, a new X-box, a PlayStation, or a computer. We will work hours and hours so we can get an ounce of pleasure. Instead, we should be worrying about our family, getting our loved ones taken care of, walking with and having a real relationship with Jesus Christ, and being able to go to bed every night knowing that everything is alright between me, my family, and God. That is not pleasure; that is joy. This joy lasts a lot longer than any vacation or camping trip. I’m not saying any of that’s wrong, but it shouldn’t control us. Before the fall of the Roman Empire, the Romans cried out, “Give us bread and circus.” They placed pleasure, as high in importance as the necessities, and it wasn’t very long before they were destroyed. When you work 60 hours a week, all so you can go on a vacation and neglect your family, you are selfish.
All of us, at one point in time, have been overwhelmed. We have got so many problems in this generation, and yet living now should be easier than it ever has. The reason it is not is because we demand the best. I hate to tell say, but in TEOTWAWKI your zero-turn lawn mower that you used to mow your 100 square foot yard is going to be useless. We have lost focus on what’s important. We think we have to have so many things– the newest truck, the best lawnmower, the biggest house, and so forth. Yet, none of that amounts to any more than a hill of beans. I hope, the survivalist crowd, who claims to prioritize and focus on what’s necessary, will listen to this. Your house payment, your cell phone bills, and your car payment should not be the things that control your life. If your car payment cripples your monthly income, sell it. I’ll say this, buying a brand new vehicle is idiotic. By the time you drive it off the parking lot it loses over half its value, and 90% of the time when that warranty goes out, it’ll start having problems. If you can’t afford your house and if you missed work for a month, the bank would take everything you own, so sell it. Neglecting your family and working yourself into an early grave is not worth impressing the neighbors. If the neighbor’s opinion means more to you than your family, you are shallow, and you should be ashamed. The only opinions that should matter to you are that of your wife, your children, and your Savior. Do your kids see you read your bible every day? Do you even read your bible? Do you teach them about the important things in life? Do you even know the important things in life?
If our families are struggling to stay above water now, they will never survive the economic collapse. Men, love your wives and take care of your families. Train up your children in the way they should go, and don’t let the school or the television do it. The best thing you could do is get rid of the stupid thing. I believe it has been one of the most effective methods the devil has used in destroying America. Be a family now, and you will be a family then.