It is easy to deceive yourself. We convince ourselves that we need to provide the perfect home for our family. Justifying the longer hours, the late nights, missing out on playtime. We tell ourselves that if we can just reach the next milestone, it will be worth the sacrifice.

Your family cares more about the time you spend on them than the money you spend on them. Time with family is priceless, money spent on family is not. I ask that you understand that I am not advising that you place your families well being in jeopardy so you can spend time with them, but if the time spent away is simply to be able to buy nice things, its not time well spent.

Deuteronomy 6:7

“You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise.”

The Bible tells us that we are to teach our children diligently, when we sit in the house, when we walk with them when we lie down and when we rise. I understand that it’s not literally saying to sit and walk with them, although we do that. The implication is that we teach while we do life with them. The lessons you can teach your children are invaluable, and we need to be with them in order to teach them. If your working two jobs in order to provide a place to live and food to eat, your child will learn a valuable lesson from that. That providing for family is important. And they will see how hard you work to both provide and spend time with them.

Your children need you in their lives, they need your presence more than a perfect house, car or clothes. Your wife needs you more than the extra money you might provide from an extra couple shift every week. Know that you are wanted, know that your family cares more about time with you than extra gifts on birthdays and Christmas.

My thoughts are that we first spend time in God’s word, spend time with family, spend time serving others and lastly spend time improving the financial situation or working on your goals.