Which of the following are similar to the ways you've served Christ in your family? [check all that apply]
• Taught your kids to see God's glory in nature
• Washed the dishes without being asked
• Played a board game with your kids
• Encouraged your wife to finish her master's degree
• Attended a child's open house at school
• Worked fewer hours to be with your family
• Set an example of a godly prayer life for your children
• Held a crying child
• Swung on the tire swing with your daughter
• Told your wife why you're still in love with her
• Told your son he's got what it takes
• Coached soccer
• Let you child correct you now and then
• Fixed the vacuum cleaner
• Taught your sons to ride a bike
• Listened patiently to a complaint of your wife
• Taped your child's artwork to your office wall
• Admitted to your kids that you were wrong
• Told your children how Christ entered your life
• Cleaned up vomit
• Taught your children to love books
• Been romantic without expecting sex
• Told your daughter she's smart/beautiful
• Set standards for your kids and stuck to them
• Dealt graciously with a busybody neighbor
• Peeled carrots
• Watched movies together
Now or Never Theme of the Week: Youngster Time-Sharing Wednesday, November 13, 2002
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November/December 200256Now or NeverTheme of the Week: Youngster Time-Sharing Now or Never Theme of the Week: Youngster Time-Sharing Wednesday, November 13
Key Bible Verse: Repeat them again and again to your children. Talk about them when you are at home (Deuteronomy 6:7). Bonus Reading:Deuteronomy 6:4–9
I was to speak at a banquet on a Friday night. As I pulled in the driveway, the headlights fell on my son Bob's bicycle. For days it had been standing in the carport, its rear tire flat as a pancake. I'd promised to fix it, and had a plane to catch early the next morning. So I called Bob, and we patched that tire.
Then I washed up, grabbed a fresh shirt and tie, and tore across town. I was 20 minutes late, and the emcee had ulcers. "Where in the world have you been?" he asked.
"I'm awfully sorry," I said. "I had to fix a flat."
"I thought you had a new car!" he replied.
"Oh, I do. It was my boy's bike that had the flat."
That man lost it! After he gave me a piece of his mind about wasting the dinner crowd's time, I responded, "Did it ever occur to you that it may be far more important for me to fix my boy's bicycle tire than to eat your meal?"
Not long after, Bob and I were out in the park, playing ball together and throwing stones in the creek.
"Hey, Bob," I asked, "do you love me?"
"I sure do, Dad."
"Great! How come?"
"Because you play ball with me and fix my bike tire!"
—Howard Hendricks in Standing Together
My Response: Where would my kids say I place them on my priority list?
Thought to Apply: What a father says to his children is not heard by the world, but it will be heard by posterity. —Jean Paul Eixhter (writer)
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