In our culture there is a non-stop pull on our time and attention. It is critical to realize this. Another important aspect of this is to realize that often these are very valid and good things. Our challenge is not to do every “good” thing that happens to pass within our view, but rather to prioritize and make the main things the main things. To be intentional about what we will dedicate our lives to. To not let marketers, our jobs, our hobbies or even our churches dictate how we invest our most valuable resource… time.
I am going to break something to you. This pull on your attention and time only grows with kiddos (<insert sound of loud “Amen!” from experience parents>).
Lately I have felt like we needed to invest a bit more of our resources as a family into our faith. Like maybe the Holy Spirit was whispering that we may be resting on our strong foundation in place, and not spending enough time focused on continuing to grow our relationship with Him. One of our ideas to act on this was to add a middle of the week longer devotion time.
It was scheduled for tonight, but once we returned from an activity out everyone was tired, everyone had a routine they wanted to transition into, Trinity had school work, Luke was a bit off, Ben wanted to unwind before bed… on and on and on. There were a million reasons not to, but we pushed forward with sitting as a family and all watching a sermon together. And you know what… it was hard to even describe type of AWESOME. The message spoke to each of us and we were all crazy refreshed (Trinity actually said it was her favorite message she has ever heard).
KEY: Overall we were rewarded for choosing to listen to that still small voice and make spending time focused on Him a priority. We chose the main Good over the lesser counterfeits.
But this is not just a spiritual point. He will guide us in what seem like everyday decisions. How much sports is too much for your family? Maybe soccer is fine, but are you willing to stop before the teams start travelling each weekend? Maybe you will find that your church involvement or even ministry time is taking too much of your family resources at this parenting stage of life. Maybe you are letting your work have too much control over your priorities. The point is that He is always there gently directing us to Himself, which is always greater, always more loving, always More… if we are willing. He knows exactly what that next step looks like for each of us.
I will leave you with a related quote by the great C.S. Lewis:
“It would seem that Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.”