I came across this picture on social media this past week. The message in the picture had an impact on me. I immediately thought of my two children; one now a sophomore in college and the other a sophomore in high school. I thought of my wife and the almost twenty-three years we have been married. As I thought of how quickly the time had passed between their birth and the present, I could hear the first verse of an old hymn…”Time is filled with swift transition, naught on earth unmoved can stand.” To the point made in the picture, the time with our children, seems to streak past us. We blink and the babies that it seemed we were, only yesterday, strapping into a car seat and bringing home from the hospital are now headed off to independent lives as young adults. Where did the time go?
If we are not careful to cherish and savor the time that we our blessed to have with our children and families, then we are setting ourselves up to live with regrets later in life. Ministry is not more valuable than relationships with our children and spouses. Contrary to what many may believe, God is not honored when we neglect to love (used as a verb) our families for the sake of serving others in ministry. There is no level of professional or educational achievement that can outstrip the joy that comes with being present in the lives of our families. Let me take a moment to be perfectly transparent. I learned this the hard way. There was a season where ministry and education sent my priorities spiraling out of balance. Meetings, coursework, dissertation completion, sermon preparation, church planting, all of these things seemed honorable and justifiable reasons to “present but absent” in family life. Blessedly, I finished these pursuits before it was too late and was able to establish a balance between the personal and professional. Is it easy? Absolutely not. Do I feel that I missed some valuable time? Absolutely. There are some things that we all can learn and do to ensure that we do not end up regretting the time that we missed.
- Be present
- Be available
- Live in the moment
- Create and capture memories
- Determine to have no regrets
Be present
You have got to be around in order to be involved with your family. This is a bedrock principle. Be present. There should be at least one whole day during every week that you clear your schedule of all outside activity and you are physically present with your family. As simple as this sounds, we all know how easy it is to fill our schedules with meetings for the coming week and then try to find time to be with family. Or we tell ourselves that we will spend time with them when we get home after a long day, only to arrive to tired to really be present. Be present. Your family needs you around.
Be available
Wait, you say, isn’t this the same as be present? No, it is not. It is possible to be in the same house or room, or on the same vacation with your family and not be available. Responding to email, finishing a report, answering calls, can all be distractions that can steal your mental and emotional presence from your family although you are physically present. I love the “Do Not Disturb” feature on my smartphone. It allows me to schedule “blackout” times for technology. Anyone or anything that isn’t associated with the most important people in my life is blacked out for a specified period of time. Our children and spouses know when we are “present” but not engaged.
Live in the moment
If I am present and available then I may as well live in the moment. This means that I don’t waste the valuable and short time that I have with my family by thinking about the things that I have on my desk or to-do list. I am with the most important people in the world and the most important thing is to enjoy the present moment. Whatever we may happen to be doing at the moment is all that matters. The responsibilities that I have professionally will be there when the appointed time to reengage work begins. Until then…let the good times roll!
Create and capture memories
I love quiet time. I am an introvert, so I am energized by quiet time. I could take a two week vacation and spend the bulk of the time with a book or a movie, writing my thoughts in a journal, and return to tell everyone that I just had the best time of my life. But the rest of my family, my wife and children, aren’t wired the same as I am. That means that I need to make sure that at least some of the time that I am present, available, and living in the moment are expressly designed to create memories. I also need to make sure to capture the memories that are created. I must admit that I am a bit jealous of new parents today. With cameras on smartphones and all of the social media outlets, capturing memories is easier than ever. Time at the park by the water, on the beach, at the amusement park can all be captured and even shared in virtual “real time.” How great is that? I can have the experience, share the experience, and relive the experience almost at the same time. What can you do different? Where can you go that you have never been? What experience can you create for your family that you will all remember and talk about for years to come?
Determine to have no regrets
Time is filled with swift transition. Before you know it, you will be celebrating graduations, weddings, and grandchildren. You and your spouse will have gone through several different stages of life together. If you are like me, then you do not want to look back over those years and exclaim “I wish I had…” I wish I had been present. I wish I had been available. I wish I had enjoyed the moments we shared. I wish I had captured the memories. We all only get to live one life let us determine that the most important things in our lives will be the things that receive the most attention. Ministry, career, education, promotion…at the end of our days we will all come to know just how insignificant all of these things truly were. Love your family while you have the chance.