Unless the Lord builds the house, its builders labor in vain. Ps. 127:1, NIV.

Researchers have found that the majority of strong, healthy families have the following traits in common:

1. Commitment: Put God and your family first, and commit to helping each other become everything God designed you to be.
2. Appreciation and affirmation: Give positive attention and affirm each other, letting each family member know they’re special. Strong families focus on the strengths of each other, not the faults.
3. Time together: Healthy families enjoy being together. Work together, play together, and enjoy leisure times together. Family members may be busy, but they don’t let jobs, school, or personal hobbies steal family time.
4. Communication: To understand each other a family has to be willing to invest the time necessary to share their feelings and opinions. Each day you are a new person. Without sharing those experiences with each other, family members can soon become strangers.
5. Religion: Sharing a religious faith and having similar religious values and standards is extremely important. Worshipping together is a bonding experience. But most important is a commitment to God, the foundation of the family.
6. Play and a sense of humor: Happy families have fun together; they play together; they laugh together. Having a sense of humor during troublesome moments is like pouring oil on restless water. It defuses the tension and has an immediate calming effect.
7. Sharing responsibilities and roles: If family members will do whatever is necessary to meet each other’s needs, even if the task doesn’t happen to be on their priority list, everyone is happier. Be flexible and responsible.
8. Common interests and goals: The more a family has in common, the more its members tend to do together. Having similar interests and getting behind common goals gives the family something to look forward to, to plan, and to experience together.
9. Service to others: Just as a pond grows stagnant if it has no outlet, so does a family. Reaching out and helping others bonds families together.
10. Admitting to and seeking help with problems: Healthy families aren’t problem-free; they just admit to problems and get the help they need to solve them!

How does your family measure up? For a little bit of heaven on earth, make God the foundation of your family and add these 10 essential traits.

Used by permission of Health Ministries, North American Division of Seventh-day Adventists.