Time with the Family!

Today has been a busy day, although not as much as recently! There was a bit of stuff o do around the house, helping Cinthia with cleaning, helping daniel with English, working on this website and getting it ready to publish; but, we still made time to spend together. Several hours of playing with Daniel, and time to sit and share with Cinthia (once Daniel took his nap!) It was a blessing to make the time to spend together, show how much I love them!

I was thinking back to when I was a child (makes me sound old for some reason!). I remember reading a lot about Billy Sunday, a profesional baseball player that God called to be an evangelist. He had a very effective ministry, where thousands of souls walked his 'sawdust trail' to receive the Lord as their Savior. Sadly, I read that because he was on the road almost all the weeks of the year, his own children were lost to the Gospel, and at least one of them died an outcast drunk.

I remember an old preacher that once said: 'The verse says, what gain does a man have if he wins the whole world, and loses his own soul...or his own household for that matter. This applies to both the physical winnings, but also the spiritual.'

I know that in heaven we are all one family, and that God will wipe away all tears, but what sorrow to have won many over to Christ, and yet have lost your own family.

I would like to remind all of us fathers and parents, not to be so busy doing that we loose touch of our relationships. This can apply to those that are in ministry, but also those that work other jobs as well. We tend to be so busy that we 'deserve' our day of rest, or there is so much else to do around the house, or with friends, etc...

Spend time building memories with your family, not just playing, but investing in their spiritual lives as well. That said, we cannot expect them to listen to our 'preaching' if we do not have time invested in their lives. And the closer they are to us, the closer their realtionship, the more time we must invest in their lives.

Lord, give us the wisdom and strength to spend time with our families, to invest in their lives...that your Word and you love can shine through us into their lives. Keep us from winning the world and losing our own families.