Just A Matter Of Time

“Children are a gift from the Lord; they are a reward from him.” – Psalms 127:3.

Every child is a gift from God. Parents have a responsibility to develop that gift – to mold and shape, to shepherd and nurture – this precious life. How can we be effective parents in a defective world? That is the million-dollar question. Are we equipped to raise godly children in this age? Because it takes more than good intentions to raise a godly generation who lives boldly for Christ.

While parents are different in many ways, they are similar in their love for their children and their desire to see them flourish. Christian parents have the same wishes, coupled with the great responsibility to raise them to know and love the Lord. Today’s culture makes that task increasingly more difficult. We need to be intentional. And intentionality is often a matter of time. One of the ways we can be more intentional about time is to cut out these five words: “…for a couple of minutes.”

The pressure that society is placing on parents is to spend all their time working for our family, rather than being an intentional part of the family.  It can seem that the plan for the day will unravel if you stop to spend time with your child. So when your son wants you to kick a soccer ball with him or your daughter wants you to play hide and seek with her our reply is, “for a couple of minutes.” If we are not careful, we can hear ourselves saying those five words more and more often in an attempt to deal with too many different things at the same time.

The cold reality is our kids grow up quickly. It’s sobering to realize how quickly time with our children is passing by. Most parents have regretted or will regret saying  “for a couple of minutes.” To be intentional means we don’t take the time with our kids for granted and that we are intentional about how we use it. We need to remember that our time with our kids is precious but short and that eternity is long. We can invest in things that produce an eternal dividend or in things that end next week. The question here is, how are we investing the little time we have with our children? Is it used up by numbing entertainment so we can get other things done or are we being intentional about how they are doing spiritually?  

When we look back at all those times that we spent quality time with our children, we were creating something beautiful by intentionally investing in them.

 Discussion Questions:

1. What constitutes intentional time for you? 
2. What can you do this week to be more intentional about your time with your children?