Do you ever wish you could have been one of Jesus’ disciples? What if you could have walked this earth with Jesus for three years, asking questions and watching how to do things?
What if God asked you to do this on earth? What if God asked you to spend quality time with a few people, to show them how to think about and work through the tangles of this broken world. He has! For those of us with families, the disciples God has given us are our children. And God is nice enough to give them to us with a clean slate.
When our girls were little I got in the habit of making up “Big Man” bedtime stories. This fictional character had a lot of similar experiences that I did growing up, and he worked through many complex situations. This gave me a way to communicate values and ideas to our girls. As they grew older I read them many books. We listened to audio books while painting pictures or doing road trips. Playing games like Halo and Age of Empires taught us about teamwork, attitudes and short-term wins and losses. Watching movies together gives us an opportunity to talk about life and its complexities, and hopefully shows our children how to fast forward parts of some movies, and walk away from others.
We try to take a Family Day once a week, a sabbath rest from work. This is a challenge for me, as I love to work. This is not my only challenge. Walking with our girls from diapers to children to teen-agers to young adults has been the joy and challenge of my life. My work includes long hours and quite a lot of travel. Having a weekly Family Day whenever possible gives us all something to look forward to.
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