That last one is hard for me. I am blessed to be doing something I love for a job, that I have skills to do, with people I really love working with. But it can make my job WAY too important in my own mind.
It gets really easy to think about how I am (or could be) helping lots of teens get introduced to Jesus and community and the Church and forget about doing those same things with my 4 kids at home. Home can get pretty stressful because I never leave anything for being there. I give it all at work.
And this is a problem. A big one. Part of the problem is buying into the lie of "balance". Not the lie of achieving a balanced life, that is goal we can have. But the lie that we can split our life up into parts, like 50% work 50% home or 33-33-34 or 1-40-59 or whatever you want the split to be. If your family gets less than 100% of you, that sucks. Of course it is unrealistic to give 100% of your time, but you can give everything you have when your there.
Here is what I'm trying to do:
Work ridiculously hard while I'm at work. 40 or 50 (or sometimes more) hours of work a week should be plenty to get done what I think God is calling me to do, if I use my time wisely.
When I have big, huge, hairy, loud work projects to finish TODAY!!!, I go home when I say I will, or even a little early. And I leave my computer off once I'm home. No pulling up work projects the second I'm home.
We talk about and memorize the Bible together. We talk about the story that God is writing. We read the Jesus Bible Storybook together(Seriously, go buy it now!). Because the Bible and following Jesus is not my job, it is my LIFE. I have to pass that on to my kids and show them what it means in the small places of my day, not just when I'm up front at church things.
I'm trying to teach my kids what's important. Don't tell Kennedy, but I'm going to take her out of school to go finish some pottery we've been making at my friends Mark's studio.
What are you doing to "balance" the different parts of your life? Leave a comment on this post!
3 comments:
Oh Jesse, I feel your pain!! I loved my job so so much that I started putting them second in my life. This past weekend I was able to spend the entire weekend with my family. How blessed I am!! Please keep the "balance".
Jesse, this is my constant struggle too. Trying to show faithfulness at work, and yet the most important ... showing faithfulness at home, often gets overlooked. I enjoyed this one. Really hits "home"
I didn't realize you blogged so much! This is cool! I'll be following you! Enjoy your day brother!
Hey anonymous! You have a name?
And Jason and Anon- Yes! When you love your job, it actually heightens the tension. We want to be great at things we love, and when we have lots of those things that we love... I think the word for what often happens is mediocrity.
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