Today is an amazing day already. I know it will continue to be so, and that all I need to do is connect with my Heavenly Father a little first. (sidenote: my pinwheel just spun a little because of the heater blowing...that was pretty cool...not gonna lie!)
Today's devotion is Do You Have The Time?
Verse: James 4:14
This whole blog is about teens and what is really important to them. What do they want from you as a parent? Well...love. And what equals love to them? Time. Suzanne did some studying for a book she was writing and in it she sent out a survey. One question gave the kids a choice between a weekend with their parent or a gift certificate to spend at the mall. Most kids said time with a parent. Are you surprised? I'm not.
B and I worked with youth at our last church...he was the youth guy and I was the admin for all the paperwork side of things ;) We worked with a big group of kids spread across 6 thru 12 grade. We contacted them by email, text, postcards...you name it! We went to camp and made ourselves available pretty much any time during the summer. Why did we spend our time doing this? Because we knew that kids wanted people to spend time with them. When we were getting ready to make our move, it broke our hearts to leave the kids we had spent so much time with. (We left them in good hands though, don't you worry ;) ) The last lesson we did with them was about love. We wanted them to know that they were loved, that we did everything we did with them out of love and that we would not have had that love, had we not had the relationship we did with God. There were times...oh I could tell you stories. If it were not for the steadfast outpouring of God's love into me...I wouldn't have been able to work with them. But I did. And after this lesson, B and I were both crying and you know what...so were the kids. We had invested so much time in them that they understood, with out words, that we loved them.
This devotion doesn't surprise me. Even now, as we're helping in the kids ministry, we're working with a youth junior leadership team...and what do all the kids want? More time!
This devotion also makes me think of the relationship we have with God. If we could just get a little more time with Him, things would be better. Really, He's there all the time :) He's waiting on us to press pause on the rest of the world to spend some time actually talking to Him. He is that parent sitting next to our bed asking us about our day and waiting patiently to hear us speak. He is consistently reaching out His hand to us...but we have to take it. Kind of a weird flip side isn't it? For those of you that are parents of teens, the devotion challenges you to look at your priorities and really be honest about how much time you spend on them. I know a lot of parents of teens that would spend all the time in the world getting to know their kid better...I also have seen parents not so much as give their child a smile. I know there are hurts in being a parent. I know there are times you want to rip your hair out...and I'm not even a parent yet! lol It may be hard to prioritize time with your teen (or even your 6 year old) because you're taking care of providing for them. Do me a favor? Pray about giving God the timing of your day. Let Him help you through the day to pace you...and He'll open up opportunities to interact with your kids and give them the time that will make them feel loved.
K...so now for those of you that don't have kids...pray about giving God the timing of your day as well. Let Him help you through the day to pace you....and He'll open up opportunities to spend time with Him :)
Don't worry...I'm doing it too ;)
Hugs,
M
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