A Father's Day Recap

This weekend at church service, which happened to be on Father's Day, I heard a few suggestions that caught my attention and wanted to share. The reason I share these is because they are things I've struggled with or have run up against many times over the years as a parent and business operator.

One question I've asked myself often is, what does God want me to do at work? What is my calling?  Another, how much time should I spend there and how can I keep from thinking about work when I am at home and should be present with my wife and kids?  Have you ever struggled with this?  My guess is probably yes...so here is what I learned this weekend at service and here is what I am finding to be most important the older I get. 

The pastor this weekend as I was talking with him on the way out of church said, "Many men over the years have come to me saying they feel like they are being called to work in ministry". He said he tells them that is great, but regardless of the calling, he needs to make sure that he first takes care of his wife and children. Be there for them first. I've thought about getting into full time ministry fairly often and I've also thought about the strain I have a feeling it could put on my family, especially with the responsibilities I have to our team at Frontier, our clients, residents and my fellow investor partners. I kind of figured that if I am being called into ministry, then Jesus wants be to put everything else in second place...however, maybe that's not the case. While ministering to others as a pastor or church leader may be an obvious and great way to minister, we can minister and serve others in many other ways through our everyday vocations and certainly as a parent and husband/wife. 

During the sermon, the pastor also mentioned, that if we change jobs or are no longer able to work, we can be replaced in not much time, perhaps even in a few days or less. However, as a parent or spouse, those positions are not possible to replace, they are non transferable, so lets try to never downplay the importance of parenting and think for a minute that our work vocations are more important. Our kids and spouses need us - probably more than we can ever imagine.  The investments of time we make today with them will have a profound impact on their lives in the future and will likely impact their kids at least a generation or two down the line.

I certainly do not get this right all the time (not even close), however, I can tell the older I get, the more I realize the importance it is to put God first, Wife and Family next.

Lord, give me the strength to always put You first, then family, then friends and community. My job titles will change at work many times over the years, but the job titles that will never change are Husband, Father and Disciple. Thank you Lord.