Set Your Priorities : Balancing Work and Home as a

“In your relationships with one another,
have the same mindset as Christ Jesus…”

Philippians 2:5 (NIV)

The heart-tugging story has gone viral. A young child wants to know his parent’s hourly wage. The parent is offended thinking that the child is presumptuous to ask and might be using the information to compare his parent’s level of success to that of a classmate’s parent. You know where this is going: the young child simply wanted to how much money was needed in to buy an hour of his parent’s precious time.

My question is this: why does this pull at our heart strings so strongly? Could it be that within this anonymous story we see grains of truth that make us uncomfortable?

There is the obvious. Have we made our children feel as though they have to buy our time? Are we so busy doing other things that they are reduced to battling to be a priority? And what about that hidden concern that our “level of success,” based solely on an hourly wage, won’t measure up and that if it doesn’t we will embarrass our child … or ourselves.

As people seeking to be pleasing to God while balancing work and home, we must make sure that we have our priorities in line with what God would have them to be. He does not judge success by comparing our salaries. He doesn’t log volunteer hours for good community events. As husbands and fathers, we must remember that it was to us that Paul wrote (inspired by the Holy Spirit) “…bring [children] up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.”

As wives and mothers, we need to carefully examine the words found in Titus 2 to find the priorities God has set for us: teaching, loving husbands and children, living Godly lives. This does not mean that we cannot have other outlets of energy, including a career, but if we allow our priorities to reverse, we can be sure that stories like the one told here or lived out in our daily lives will bring guilt and not glory to God, which is the very reason we were created (Isaiah 43:7).

“Lord, as I seek to balance my career and my family, please help me do so with your priorities in mind. Help me keep You first and all else will follow.  Through Christ, Amen”

To Receive All Our Blog Posts via Email for Free, Click Here

Photo background credit: Krzysztof Szkurlatowski on FreeImages.com