Balancing Career And Family With Faith Series

The Bible has a lot to say about building strong, healthy families, and contains a lot of great insights. Use the Word of God as your blueprint for building your family.

A suggestion I would make to you is this: Spend time with your spouse or with your family reading the Word of God and talking about how it applies to your family. You may want to use a book like this… Quiet Times for Couples. Shera and I have used this. It basically looks at a passage of Scripture and talks about how it applies to our marriage. There are other books like this which you can find that can help you with your marriage or with your family. Just go down to the Maritime Christian Bookstore down on Hillsborough Street and ask to see their Family Devotional Books.

The second tip is related to the first…

2. Make the spiritual growth of your family a priority.

I remember in my home church growing up as well as when I was working in the church in Bedford that we would have families in our church which would disappear once the summer hit. They would take off to their cottage for the summer or they would take weekend trips every weekend or they would just take a few months off. We also had families where the children were involved on hockey teams or baseball teams or some other kind of team and they’re game schedules would keep them away from being part of the Church 10, 15 or 20 Sundays a year. I don’t want to paint a picture of gloom and doom, but this week when I thought about these families I reflected in the divorces and the rebellion and the turmoil these families experienced, and I think there’s a connection.

I understand the importance of having family time and having shared experiences together. I even understand the desire to take a Sunday off once in a while and relax. Sometimes I wish I could do that. And occasionally those things are fine, but they shouldn’t be the norm. Maybe once or twice a year, but you need to understand that regularly getting together with the Body of Christ… the Church… is essential to your own spiritual growth as well as the growth of your family.

Of course, you’re all here this morning and that’s terrific. I’m not trying to scold you or make you feel bad for when you do miss a Sunday. But I want to express to you the importance of being part of the Church and making spiritual growth a priority in your family. So if you are travelling or you are at your cottage and can’t be here for a Sunday, that’s okay. But find a church nearby that you can join with for that Sunday or for the summer.

Hebrews 10:25 (NLT)

And let us not neglect our meeting together, as some people do, but encourage and warn each other, especially now that the day of his coming back again is drawing near.

You need to make the spiritual growth of your family a priority, which means you need to be part of a community of believers. It also means that at home you put into practice what you’re learning from His Word. You spend time together reading the Bible and in prayer.

3. Make God part of your family decisions.