As a parent, you understand the importance of being powered up and ready. After all, if you don’t have something ready for your kids, they will have something ready for you; right? Pause and think about everything you have to do to be ready on a given day. You start running from the minute the alarm rings. And then you do the same thing the next day, and the next day, and the next day.
As a parent, you are a giver – it’s the nature of being a mom or dad. At its core, parenting is attending to the needs of your children. You give yourself away.
Here’s a question for you: How well are you doing receiving so that you have something significant to give your kids? One of the unspoken realities of being a Christian parent is that if you aren’t intentional, your own spiritual life will suffer as a result of giving yourself to your family.
As I look back on my childhood in the church, it seems like the Sunday School lessons I remember the most are the object lessons. I remember one of my Sunday School teachers using a sponge to teach a lesson about the importance receiving before you give. A sponge doesn’t have water when squeezed unless it has taken in water first. Simple concept I know, yet 30 some years later I still think about it often.
How many parents go through the motions week after week, nothing more than a dried-up sponge? They look like a sponge, act like a sponge, and even muster up something spiritual to share with their kids now and then. Yet, they often give without taking in themselves.
A.W. Tozer said, “Worship is the missing jewel of the church.” (Pause and think on that.) Let’s zoom in a little closer. Is worship the missing jewel in my life? In yours?
Personal worship and time with the Lord is critical in the life of the Christian parent. It will make or break you. Pastor Rick Warren said recently that one of the main reasons pastors fall is because personal worship dries up. (They are walking sponges – dry as a bone.) The same can be said for parents like you and me. We must make our personal walk with the Lord a priority!
How can you keep your sponge full? Ultimately, that’s a decision only you can make. Maybe you need to get disciplined and start saying yes to the right things and no to the wrong things. Perhaps you need to come up with a plan for personal worship. The YouVersion Bible app can help you do this. Maybe you need to get some rest, or find a Bible study partner, or schedule regular appointments with God in your calendar. How you keep your sponge full is up to you and the Lord. The critical thing is that you start… now!
