“Don’t you see how wonderfully kind, tolerant, and patient God is with you? Does this mean nothing to you? Can’t you see that his kindness is intended to turn you from your sin?” (Romans 2:4, NLV)

God has created each one of us with this inner desire to be filled by Him but we often choose to allow other things to fill that hole in our life.  Recently, I had come to acknowledge that I had a substitute god in my life.

Substitute gods take. They take your time, energy, thoughts, money, focus, and purpose. If they give it’s only temporary and then it leaves you needing and wanting more.  That’s what this god was doing in my life.  I was bowing down to this god and was worshiping and accepting it as lord of my life.

Through the study of God’s Word, He has shown me that I need His sorrow for my sin and His repentance.  I now know that this area of my life is sin – before I called this everything else but that and by not confessing my sin and relinquishing this area in my life I have experienced frustration, anger and defeat.

Joel 2:12-13 (NLV) says,  “That is why the LORD says, ‘Turn to me now, while there is time.  Give me your hearts.  Come with fasting, weeping, and mourning.  Don’t tear your clothing in your grief, but tear your hearts instead. Return to the LORD your God, for he is merciful and compassionate, slow to get angry and filled with unfailing love.  He is eager to relent and not punish.’”

Praise God that He loves us in spite of our failures! Each day I am experiencing His amazing grace as I continue to give this issue in my life to Him and accept His forgiveness.

I’m here to tell you, it’s not worth it to hold on – sin only brings shame, sorrow, frustration and guilt. God is ready and waiting to release you from the bonds of your sin and to set you free!  There is so much joy and freedom and He is patiently waiting.

So trade in that substitute god for the REAL ONE – it’ll be the best decision you’ll ever make!

Questions: Do you have a substitute god in your life? Is there an area in your life that you have been unwilling to relinquish and submit to God?

How do young people spell love? T-I-M-E.  They did a study of 300 7^th and 8^th graders. They wanted to find out how much time does a 7^th and 8^th grader spend in a meaningful conversation. In other words, in a conversation that is not just meaningful to the father but to the child. How much time they spend in a meaningful conversation with their father? It came out to 7.5 minutes a week, not a day, a week! Which means about one minute a day in a meaningful conversation between a father and a 7^th and 8^th grader.

If you want to install values, correct thinking, beliefs, truth into a child, then you need to have to be with them in meaningful conversations that they understand and want to be involved in.

You need time to invest into your child if you’re going to impact their life.

Take the next step
Creating Quality Time With Your Kids
Take a Parenting Check-up
Check out FamilyLife Canada’s Resources 

Are you searching for a source of peace? We can pray for you.

Choose today to give.  Hold your hands open and offer yourself to God first. Let His wisdom, strength and power flow through you. Offer to be His conduit.

Then give yourself to others. Give your time, give your attention, give your resources and give your care.

God’s word speaks the truth when it says, “The world of the generous gets larger and larger – the world of the stingy gets smaller and smaller” (Proverbs 11:24).

Be generous today and just see if your own world doesn’t expand in some way.

Think about stingy-ness. The mark of the stingy person is the attitude of fear that convinces him there never will be enough. Ask yourself if you are stingy in any area. Making a change will enhance your life.

Choose wisely. If you are a manager and have people working under you, be deliberate in having a generous attitude as you respond.

Surprise yourself today as you reach out to make a generous choice in some unexpected way.

Lord, fill my heart to overflowing with gratitude for Your love and faithfulness. Help me to pass Your love on in some way today. Amen.

Inspired by “The Rest of God” Chapter 5 by Mark Buchanan

Questions: Are you a generous person? Are you stingy in any way? What changes can you make to enhance your life?

“As the time approached for him to be taken up to heaven, Jesus resolutely set out for Jerusalem. And he sent messengers on ahead, who went into a Samaritan village to get things ready for him; but the people there did not welcome him, because he was heading for Jerusalem.” (Luke 9:51-62)

Jesus is totally devoted to accomplishing his Father’s will and finally, resolutely begins the journey to Jerusalem. The decision is radical and final. The followers who by now have at least some sense of his plan trudge alongside him, fear mixed with obedience. Do they understand the Savior is “living on borrowed time”?

One definition of that English idiom is “a period of uncertainty during which the inevitable consequences of a current situation are usually postponed or avoided.” If we look into the future that looms ahead of Jesus, we can see him agonizing with his Father, asking if there could not be some other plan: “Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me…” Jesus’ acceptance of that plan (“yet not my will, but yours be done”) eliminates any thought of postponing or avoiding the consequences of the situation.

Shortly after Luke describes the resolute path to Jerusalem, he records a conversation Jesus has with his friends in which he talks yet again about the cost of following the Savior. Some who hear the cost will want to return to the assumed safety and security of what they have become accustomed to. Others, like those trudging disciples, will follow the path to Jerusalem, not understanding all the cost, but willing to live—with Jesus—on borrowed time.

Questions: What does it mean to “live on borrowed time”? Do we alos live on borrowed time?

Sometimes it’s easy to let inconsequential things steal focus from what should be most important. What are your priorities? How do you make time for them? How do you decide what your priorities are in the first place?

Explore the interactive study “Priorities” to discover for yourself what your priorities are. When you complete the study you’ll receive a personalized reply from one of our mentors.

Related reading:
Redefining Success – How a change in priorities can change your life
Life is About So Much More than Work! – A better life awaits!

What one gift that everyone wants?

My goal for this month is to learn more about my husband. My relationship with my husband is an important one. I’m constantly reminding myself of that and the importance of working on our friendship. It can be easy to just let our relationship happen. We live together, and I see him every day. Somehow our relationship work itself out because we must be getting closer if we see each all the time, right? Wrong.

Emotional intimacy doesn’t happen on its own

I see my coworkers a lot during the week, but many of those relationships stay at the co-worker/acquaintance level. I have to be intentional about growing and expanding those relationships if I want to have a deeper friendship. In my marriage, I have to intentional about spending time developing my friendship with my husband.  Emotional intimacy doesn’t just happen on its own.

It’s important to grow in your knowledge of your spouse. Believe it or not, there are still things you might not know about each other. There are things waiting to be discovered. You took the step to marry your spouse because you knew they were worth your time. So, show them you still see their worth by taking time to work on your relationship. In today’s busy culture, time is a big deal.

Remembering the good times

One of the things I do to get to know my husband better is to reminisce. I often have a bad memory, and I know I won’t remember fun times forever.  New memories are constantly replacing the old. It’s important to take time to remember all of the good things that have happened to you as a couple.

We sat down at our kitchen table and recorded, in a journal, all the good memories from the past year. It was nice to remember the fun times together. This was a good reminder that life can have more good in it than bad. Then, we talked through some questions:

• What did each of us enjoy doing the most?
• What do we want to continue doing?
• What do we want to add?

I wrote everything down so I can look back later and remember, for other couples just talking through memories is enough.  Time invested in your relationship is always time well spent. How will you work on a friendship with your spouse? What will you do to get to know your spouse more?

What to rekindle the romance? Read this article and learn how!

Are you called or are you driven?

Small, isn’t it? And yet the majority of North American families in the 1950s lived in something that looked pretty much like that. After World War II, we radically expanded the idea of home ownership. Instead of renting, people bought these little houses, and they, by and large, thrived in them.

Was it tight? You betcha. Often three bedrooms with four or five kids, so 2-3 kids would have to share a bedroom. Bunk beds became major furniture items. The living room was small, so people sat on the couch and the floor to watch TV. Kids did homework at the dining room table.  My husband grew up in a house like that: four boys, one bathroom, small kitchen.  They survived just fine.

Am I about to write a post telling everyone you should run out and buy that house? No, of course not. What I am saying is this: many of the things we think are absolutely necessary are not. It is simply that we have listened to our society and we have turned many wants into needs. And that is part of what is making our lives so harried!

Today I want to talk about how to make decisions about work, because one of the biggest issues you will face when it comes to quality family time is whether or not both parents work outside the home. It’s just a fact. I’m not going to talk about whether or not you should leave your child in day care. I’m not going to talk about how you can make money if you stay at home. I’m also not going to talk about the fact that often it costs so much to work that it’s not worth it.

What I do want to talk about is how we can get off this merry go round that tells us that we NEED so much stuff. Work, you see, is directly related to expenses. Lower the expenses, and a job is not as much of an issue. Increase the expenses, and you have to work.

So let’s ask this: what was the quality of life like for people growing up in those tiny homes?

Of course, so much depended on the family, but the size of the home was not necessarily bad because people adjusted. It was all they knew and they felt grateful to have a home. Let’s also remember that in most parts of the world, far more people are squeezed into far smaller spaces than even that house represents. We are the strange ones, living with our huge homes. Our grandparents, in these small homes, were not strange. They were more the norm.

What did people do with less space? The kids played in the living room together, or in the basement. They didn’t hang out in their own rooms, away from their siblings. They tended to be together. They went outside more since inside was cramped, and thus they got more exercise, even in the winter. They didn’t spend as much time on television, because families usually only had one, and sometimes Mom and Dad would want to watch their programs and the kids had to scatter. They played board games. They made Lego. They played with dolls. They used their imagination.

And that was okay.

Dreaming big

When you were 13, did you love bridal magazines? Did you used to read them and stare at the pictures and imagine what your own wedding would be like? Many of us did. But many of us still do–we just replace the bridal magazines with Home & Garden, and we dream of a beautifully decorated, spacious home. It’s what we’re aiming for. We want to have “arrived”. We want the space, and the luxury.

But what if that space and luxury comes at the expense of massive amounts of your time–or your husband’s time? For it is not just women working that this quest for more stuff affects. It’s also men working. A few years ago we made the decision that my husband would work less so he could be home with the kids one day a week. Because he was on call so much, he was often gone at night, and he was missing out on so much with them. So he decided to work less. We gave up some money so that he could gain some much needed time. That’s what it all comes down to.

Not surprisingly, when we trim our expenses, we’re often able to build wealth and increase our security. Millionaires, for instance, don’t tend to act like millionaires. It’s those with less than a million dollars who consume all the luxury stuff, because they’re acting like they want to be millionaires.

Here are just a few stats I picked up from the Growth Matters blog:

•Eighty-six percent of all prestige or luxury makes of motor vehicles are driven by people who are not millionaires.
•Typically, millionaires pay about $16 (including tip) for a haircut.
•Nearly four in 10 millionaires buy wine that costs about $10 a bottle.
•In the United States, there are nearly three times as many millionaires living in homes with a market value of less than $300,000 than there are living in homes valued at $1 million or more.

The two things to take away so far? We can surely survive on less than we think, and yet at the same time society is lecturing us that we need more–and we’re believing it.

Think “Enough”!

Imagine how we could change the culture if we just said, “Enough!”. Enough credit card debt. Enough working round the clock to afford all the latest gadgets and the big cars. Enough stress from living beyond one’s means. Enough believing that life is all about entertainment and stuff instead of about family. You see, the best things in life aren’t things at all. But we seem to have forgotten that. We think our kids need stuff, when what they really need is us.
Here’s a family that gave up the rat race and decided to “live in the middle”.  His income has stayed steady at roughly $20,000 a year. Lola earns about $30,000 plus benefits working part time as a medical technician in a nearby hospital lab. A decade ago, the couple earned twice as much — about $100,000 a year. Gregg sold insurance, and they lived in tony North Scottsdale. But he wasn’t happy.

“We were on this treadmill of making money, making as much money as possible every year, and feeling that we always had to increase that because we wanted to buy more things and live in a nice house and have nice cars and everything else,” he says.

At the same time, Lola didn’t get a job she’d dreamed of, working at the Mayo Clinic in Scottsdale. That’s a painful memory.

“I remember I prayed, I prayed so hard. I still didn’t get a job. But there was a sense of letting go,” she says.

Perhaps you need two incomes to get you to the minimum that you can afford a house, even a small one like that. That’s okay, as long as you’re trying to meet your family’s NEEDS, not WANTS. But many of us are on a treadmill trying to meet WANTS, and it doesn’t work.

Now, those who know me are going to say it’s easy for me to suggest all this, because I’m not in that position. I’ve got it made. And I do. My husband is a doctor, and we’re able to live quite comfortably. But it was not always that way. Both Keith and I put ourselves through school. While he was in training and the kids were born, we lived in a small apartment, without a car. I spent my life with the girls taking them to playgroups and museums, because the apartment was too crowded to stay in during the day. Others in training had taken out the massive loans the banks were offering, and they had bought vehicles and homes. We didn’t. We saved for a down payment.

And then we bought a nice house, 1400 square feet, in a neighbourhood where no doctors ever lived. After ten years, we moved to the house we have now. We have always paid cash for our used cars. We buy our clothes at second hand stores. And we endeavor to take as many missions trips as possible and to give as much away as we can.  Yes, I have it easy, but even when we didn’t we made the decision to live “small” so that we could enjoy life more.

Benefits of downsizing

The best thing some people could do is to sell their home and downsize. Unfortunately, that’s not so easy right now with the glut of houses on the market. Many people will have to remain in the house they’re in simply because you can’t get a decent price right now. But maybe there are other things you can do. Buy a used car instead of a new one. Eat out less. Learn to save money on the big things, like electricity, insurance, utilities, car payments. And learn to save money on the small things, like groceries, eating, shopping. Many women basically “earn an income” by staying at home and putting a lot of time into saving money!

Is it fun? It can be! Think of it like a challenge, to make the money last. Give up some extracurricular activities with the kids, but replace it with fun family time, where you play games or have parties every week. Stop going out for dinner and have people over more. All of these things are “fun”.

Our society cannot go on the way it is, with so many living beyond their means. We are crushed in debt at every level–personal, state, federal. We have built a beautiful society, but it is built on sand. One day it will come crashing down, as it has already begun to. I want to be ready, by raising kids who don’t need stuff. Who don’t ask for a huge list at Christmas, but instead look forward to all the games we play that day. I want to live with less so I can live more. That’s getting back to what’s really important.

So here’s your exercise for today: examine your 10 biggest expenses on a monthly basis, and ask if they’re necessary. Can you downsize? Are these things you want, or things you genuinely need? Can your family develop a new way of looking at money, as something that works for you to build wealth, rather than something that slips through your fingers and is a source of stress? Can money be the vehicle that you help others with, instead of something you’re always desperately worried about?

For some it’s a hard switch, because you’re already living bare to the bone. For many of us, though, we just need to change our habits. Tell me in the comments what you think. Have you ever downsized? Have you ever chosen to forego something big? What did it feel like? Let us know!

Take the Next Steps: Trusting God, Not Credit Cards

This blog was originally posted on tolovehonorandvacuum.blogspot.com . Used with permission.

But wait, I’m not all crazy. I actually did invest in something that continues to pay huge returns. The way I see it, we invest in gold to make us more money to make us happy. So if I invest in something that makes me happier I am pretty smart, right? I think so.

So what did I invest in?

In their book The Love List: Eight Little Things That Make a Big Difference in Your Marriage Les and Leslie Parrott said “A few small actions—practiced on a daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly basis—can change everything for a couple.” I agreed, took it to heart and decided years ago to make some relatively small investments in my marriage that have turned into huge dividends. My marriage is what makes me happy and effects everything I do.

What did I invest? Time and some money but not a lot relatively speaking for what I received back.

Daily my wife and I make sure we take a minute to give each other our attention just before we part or when we reconnect. Plus we pray together for a few minutes each night.

Weekly we go on a date. Tonight we are heading to our favorite ice cream place with one of their Buy One Get One free coupons.

Monthly we go someplace together for a day, just the two of us.

Yearly we head to a marriage getaway  to help build our relationship like Weekend to Remember conference by FamilyLife. This event has done amazing things for our marriage and a weekend away at a hotel has some great side benefits!

Small investments but huge returns! That gets me far more excited than gold.  How do you invest in your marriage?

Weekend to Remember conferences are happening now across Canada and the US.  For Canadian readers did you know that if you sign up a group of five couples you get one free registration? Go to familylifecanada.com to see the details.

Ready to invest in your marriage right now? Try one of our free Life Lessons on marriage.  You’ll be matched with a study coach who will work with you as you learn.  Try one today.

Are you searching for a source of peace? We can pray for you.

Choose today to give.  Hold your hands open and offer yourself to God first. Let His wisdom, strength and power flow through you. Offer to be His conduit.

Then give yourself to others. Give your time, give your attention, give your resources and give your care.

God’s word speaks the truth when it says, “The world of the generous gets larger and larger – the world of the stingy gets smaller and smaller” (Proverbs 11:24).

Be generous today and just see if your own world doesn’t expand in some way.

Think about stingy-ness. The mark of the stingy person is the attitude of fear that convinces him there never will be enough. Ask yourself if you are stingy in any area. Making a change will enhance your life.

Choose wisely. If you are a manager and have people working under you, be deliberate in having a generous attitude as you respond.

Surprise yourself today as you reach out to make a generous choice in some unexpected way.

Lord, fill my heart to overflowing with gratitude for Your love and faithfulness. Help me to pass Your love on in some way today. Amen.

Inspired by “The Rest of God” Chapter 5 by Mark Buchanan

Questions: Are you a generous person? Are you stingy in any way? What changes can you make to enhance your life?

About the Author Gail Rodgers

Discovering Us
The Personal Style Indicator Assessment that you take will help you understand how you prefer to respond to Time, People, Tasks and Situations.

Comparing Us (Project)
This project will help you and your partner see areas of similarities and differences.

Understanding Us
Discover how you and your partner relate in your unique styles.

Responding to Us
Discover how to shift your styles to create oneness with your partner.

Applying it to Us (Project)
Identifying what your mix is as a couple and developing a plan to work with your unique styles.

Celebrating Us
Discover what God’s design is for marriage.

Schedule

Registration -  8:30-9:00
Introduction -  9:00-9:10
Recognizing Us – 9:10-9:55
Break – 9:55-10:15
Discovering Us – 10:15-11:15
Comparing Us (Project) – 11:15-12:00
Understanding Us – 12:00-12:45
Lunch – 12:45-2:15
Responding to Us – 2:15-3:00
Applying to Us (Project) – 3:00-3:45
Celebrating Us – 3:45-4:30