Quality Time

We pray that you’ll live well for the Master, making him proud of you as you work hard in his orchard. As you learn more and more how God works, you’ll learn how to do your work. We pray that you’ll have the strength to stick it over the long haul – not the grim strength of gritting your teeth but the glory-strength God gives. It is strength that endures the unendurable and spills over into joy, thanking the Father who makes us strong enough to take part in everything bright and beautiful that he has for us. Colossians 1:10-12

At the end of each day, week or month, I find myself asking where does the time go?! My grandmother always said that the older you get the faster the time goes, and I find that so true. Perhaps it’s the addition of children… or just the demands that we, as mothers, put on ourselves… but the days just fly bye!

We all are given the same 24 hours in each day, and as the author notes, God gives us that time and asks us to use it well, by bringing Him glory. How do you bring God glory during each day? The challenge is to spend quality time with those we love – God, our spouses, children, and families. I know that I struggle with juggling daily activities and spending quality time with those I love. Recently, I’ve put off the extras brought on by technology – returning emails in a timely manner, blogging, posting photos, etc to spend more time with my children.

After reading this reflection, I talked to my husband about trying a family fun night on Wednesdays. We will have a simple dinner and then just spend time sitting on the floor playing with the kids. We tried this Wed. but time got away from us… so we agreed to have family fun night we have to bring in pizza!

Also, I truly cherish my time at night before putting the baby to bed. I now look forward to nursing her every night at 8pm and then just cuddling her after she falls asleep. Before I used to rush to put her in bed so I could get online but I now I enjoy my time with her, unwind, and then head to bed myself. That precious time with my baby girl is our quality time together.

I think all moms agree that quality time is vital to the development of our children and the bond of our family. How do you spend quality time with your kids? How can spend more time with them? I am always open to learning from other moms – especially with two or more kids. How do you juggle the day’s activities and make time for the ones you love – God, your spouse, children, and families? This week try to set aside 10 minutes each night to have one on one time with your children.

Pride

“Pride lands you flat on your face; humility prepares you for honors.” Proverbs 29:23

The author speaks about how pride was probably the culprit in Eve's decision to eat the apple. Must we bring up Eve again? Poor Eve—she is blamed for everything that is wrong with our world. If it hadn’t been for her we would all be hanging out in the garden with God at this very moment.

If you believe that then you definitely need to check on your pride. I truly believe that if Eve hadn’t done something stupid, someone else would have. I most certainly have done some pretty bad things that would have gotten me kicked out of the garden. I have been so disrespectful to God…I daily put myself before Him. And that is a form of pride. I disagree with the author who says that pride in your heritage or your football team is not destructive. Any form of pride in anything can be destructive. For example, I love my new house. I want it to be perfect. I want pretty curtains and more furniture and more storage and beautiful decorations. But when I bought this house I knew that God wanted me to use this extra space for Him. While sitting in church I had great thoughts of having Bible studies here and a playgroup for Parker’s friends where they would learn about the Bible. But my pride in making my house perfect kept me from doing these things for the first 6 months or so. I wanted people to see my house after completion and think I had it all together. But God doesn’t care. He can use an empty room or yard. I am now working on inviting people over to my house weekly, whether it is clean or not! Talk about swallowing your pride!

But God rewards us for humbling ourselves and swallowing that pride. Again I disagree with the author here. He may not give trophies, but we will receive crowns if He is pleased with us. “Well done my good and faithful servant.” Oh, how I long to hear those words. As the author suggests, take a look at a handful of things that make you proud (like accomplishments, possessions, abilities, etc). Are you honoring God with them and giving Him the glory? Or like me, do you starve for the attention that those things can give you. I pray that we can all use our gifts from God to gain attention only for Him and at the same time receive His adoring attention for a job well done.