The Family And The Work Place
Children are a gift from God; they are his reward.
Psalm 127:3 TLB
Today there are more pressures on the home than perhaps at any time in the history of the human race.
By necessity or by desire, more women are working today than ever before. Many feel guilty about leaving their children in the care of others or having them return to an empty home while they are at work. Many divorced women must work to support themselves and their children, a phenomenon which is becoming more and more common in the age in which we live. But many women (and men, too) devote more time to their working life than they do to their family life. Is it any wonder, then, that so many marriages are in trouble?
To paraphrase the Bible, what shall it profit a man (or a woman) who gains the whole world but loses his or her own family? What achievement in life is equal to a happy home and rearing successful children who grow up in praise of their parents? Every material goal, even if it is met, will pass away. But the heritage of children is timeless. Someone has said that our children are our messages to the future. They will tell others who will never know us who we were.
More importantly, our children have been entrusted to us by God, children made in His image and for whom Christ died. Our primary responsibility is not to make sure they have the best clothes and live in the best houses. It is to make sure they grow up in homes where God is present and the love of Christ reigns so that they will come to know God through His Son.
What could be more valuable than successful children and a happy home life?
Our Father and our God, please hear my humble prayer of thanks for my children. They are the most precious of all the earthly gifts You have lavished on me. They bring me such joy and love. Their innocence reminds me of the innocent Lamb who died on the cross. Help me to guide them to Jesus, the only Way to You. In His name. Amen.
Billy Graham, Unto the Hills: A Daily Devotional (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, 2010).