mike jones

It’s Thanksgiving day and I spent a great day with my family.  My wife enjoys getting to go shopping for deals the day after Thanksgiving… she has for years and she’s amazing at saving money by finding great deals.

At home tonight, after the kids went to bed, I re-watched the movie Click with Adam Sandler… such a funny guy.  The movie is definitely worth watching if you never have and makes me seriously think every time I see it.

In our highly technical age, how mcuh time do we spend on our computers, on our cell phones, watching digital television, and the like while life is passing us by with every mouse click?  How much time do we spend giving our attention to things that are not as important as the parts of our life we are skipping?  What parts of our lives are we choosing to cheat in order to give time elsewhere?

Time flies by so fast and before we know it, we realize how fast our kids have grown up, how our relationships have progressed or grown old, or what happened to all the things we had planned to do when we were younger.

I admit that I work too much.  I don’t know why, but I do.  It always seems like something that needs to be done, and I’m feeling it in several areas of my life.  It always seems easy to say, “well it’s for a season and it will change soon”, or “as soon as this happens or that falls into place I’ll have more time to spend with my family or building strong relationships with others”.  Unfortunately, that day may never come and before you know it, it’s too late.   The kids are older, your relationships are strained, and the things you had wanted to teach them or say to them never come.

I love my family very much and I always want the best for them.  Sad that sometimes I forget that the best for them is me – being with them and spending time with them, teaching them and loving them.  Work happens and has to be done, but God has given me the responsibility to first be a husband and father and THEN pastor and creative arts director.  Why does that line so easily get confused and blurred?  I’m a son and a brother too and I have even let my busyness get in the way of maintaining and growing those relationships as well.

This change cannot and will not happen overnight, but I think there are things I can do to change this… and it’s not too late to change.

So I ask you… what is in your life that makes you too busy to be working on you marriage, your relationship with your kids, working on your relationship with your parents or siblings, or spending time building lasting friendships?

What are you willing to sacrifice or change to make these other things the priority they need to be?

Sometimes it’s just a matter of making them a priority and sticking to them.

And stop clicking through the important things in life.

Peace.