Wasting time and making changes

Pin It

I have been really convicted lately about the amount of time I waste, and the amount of time I spend in things that don't matter. Ouch. Not only that, but the time I spend doing things that are "good" instead of the things that are "better" or even "best". Double ouch.

Some things said at the homeschool conference (both in conversations with friends and in workshops), combined with a book I'm reading (Family Driven Faith by Voddie Baucham), combined with some other things going on in life ... well, I'm shaken up. I'm tired of putting so much effort into things that don't really matter, and putting off the things that do. When my kids are grown, will it really matter that I got the stain out of that shirt, or that I cleaned the counters for the seventh time in a day? Or any other of the myriad things I feel like I must do in a day, that really are chasing after the wind? I'm trying to make an effort to ask myself "does this matter?" when I start to do something. I'm not liking it a whole lot at this moment, because a lot of things really don't. This book - Family Driven Faith - talks about how many parents have abdicated their responsibility to their children, passing them off to various professionals to do a job that is ours to do. Ouch, that hurt. How many times have I left their spiritual training to their Sunday school teachers and their AWANA teachers? They have fabulous teachers, and I am so thankful for them, but the main people training them should be my husband and me, at home. How on earth are they going to be equipped to handle what life throws at them without a much more solid foundation than praying before meals and learning the Bible in Sunday School? (Yes, our homeschool curriculum is Bible based, but I don't think that's enough either.) I've heard Dr. Baucham talk about parents of youth passing them off to youth pastors but it's just hitting me that by NOT teaching them to study their Bibles at home, and by not reading the Bible to them at home, and by not encouraging them to ask spiritual questions and attempting to answer them at home, I'm doing the exact same thing. I think I've been hoping that they'd see me reading my Bible and would just pick up by osmosis that it's important. I don't think it works that way. I need to be more actively involved in their spiritual upbringing.In light of that, we're changing some things. The girls LOVE for me to read to them. Why would I not do that? Good wholesome books that enrich them, and me. Also, why would I not read the Bible to them? Why haven't we been doing that? Last night we started the book of Ruth. We just read one chapter, and the girls are very familiar with the story. It was awesome reading it to them and hearing their questions, and realizing how well they already know the story. They have made a list of stories they want to hear, what a treasure I've been missing with them!

Let me state - I'm not speaking negatively about the Sunday school teachers and other church workers. They do a great job, and I really appreciate they way they love and teach my children. I've just been doing it wrong. I've kind of been a supplement to what they're doing, and actually that's probably a reach to even say. It should be the other way around - what they're learning at church supplementing what we're teaching them at home.

Lord, keep me convicted about this!