“Stewardship of Time”
Time with Family
Another important
area in time management is family time.
Many marriages have dissolved because people assumed that preaching and performing
other ministry activities were more important than the marriage. When the marriage dissolved, they believed
that the devil had destroyed their marriage.
While the devil is an opportunist, and will enter any opening that he
sees, 2 truths need be considered.
1) God is greater and more
powerful than the devil and has the ability to preserve everything that He has
given to us. He will never require us to
work for Him and not protect what He has given us while we are performing the
task He has required of us. 2) God is a God of balance and He expects for us
to live our lives in a balanced manner.
He doesn’t require a married person to spend unreasonable amounts of
time away from the home.
The Bible offers
appropriate and reliable teaching in many areas of life. As it relates to marriage, First Corinthians
7:32-34 reveals, there is a difference in the performance of individuals who
are married and those who are single.
Single men and women have the freedom to focus completely on the things of
God and how their devotion may be pleasing to Him. However, this Scripture also indicates that
married people, in addition to pleasing God, also have a requirement and duty to
focus on their spouse and to do what is necessary to please them. For married couples, pleasing God involves
fulfilling their responsibility to please one another.
God also requires
parents to spend ample time investing in the raising of their children. While life and other responsibilities can
demand a huge portion of our time, it is necessary for a parent to be diligent
in dedicating time to teach and train their children. Deuteronomy 6:5-7 gives an indication of how
much time is required in raising children.
It says, 5 “You shall love the LORD your God with all your
heart and with all your soul and with all your might. 6 These words, which I am
commanding you today, shall be on your heart.
7 You shall teach them diligently to your sons and shall talk
of them when you sit in your house and when you walk by the way and when you
lie down and when you rise up.”
Today, many parents
have outsourced the responsibility of raising their children. As a result of a lack of proper time being
spent with their children, many children have developed antipathy for God. People used to say that preacher’s kids were
the worst kids around. In many cases it
was the result of a lack of necessary time being spent disciplining and
cultivating them into who God wanted them to be. Many times their rebellion stemmed from them
being replaced by ministry. Not God, but
ministry. In some situations the parent
spent excessive time traveling for ministry or attending daily church services
while the child longed for some alone time with their parents outside of the
church. In cases like this, fanaticism
caused an unhealthy atmosphere in the rearing of many children and some grew up
to despise the God that their parents loved.
Overall, the Bible
teaches that there should be a healthy interaction between spouses and between
parents and children. A failure to
nurture both can lead to future undesirable effects. Resentment and animosity can develop as a
result of neglecting those to whom we have an obligation to. Many spouses have experienced a void in their
relationship due to a lack of quality time spent building the connection. Parents have also encountered a distance in
the relationship with their grown children as a result of failing to invest
proper time in them as they were growing up.
Finding balance in
the distribution of our time can be extremely difficult. Many people have learned to budget their
money responsibly. They have determined
how much money they will save, how much money they will spend and the amount of
money that they are willing to give away.
In like manner, learning to balance our time effectively requires us to
sit down and create a budget for disseminating the time that we have been
allocated.
