I don’t want to intensify your guilt—not at all. But let me go ahead and say that it’s probably true that some of you are neglecting the home, and the ministry has become your mistress. Believe me; I understand how that can happen. I confess that there were periods in my own life when that occurred, which I have shared with you before.

Having been there, I’m telling you: it isn’t worth it.

My word to you is to learn the difference between being engaged in ministry and being controlled by it.

May I Say the Obvious?

You still have a family!

• They still long to have lunch with you.
• They still love to get a phone call.
• They want to know wisdom from you outside the pulpit.
• They still yearn to have an arm around their shoulders.
• They still want you to make time to sit on the back porch and kick back and listen.
• They want you to attend their ball games and go to their performance and see you relax . . . really relax!
• They still want to know that you can do more in your spare time than study.
• And they really want to hear you laugh!

They are the ones you will leave in your legacy—the only ones who have your blood and your name. They need you. They want you.

After all, they’re the ones who could write the unauthorized biography. Oh, what a thought! I won’t go there.

Words Worth Pondering

Let me end this entry by quoting from a book you should get if you don’t have it. Ken Gire, in his little volume A Father’s Gift: The Legacy of Memories, closes with these reflective words.

What pictures will my son remember
when he comes to the plain granite marker
over his father’s grave?
What will my daughters remember?
Or my wife? . . .

. . . I’ve resolved to give fewer lectures,
to send fewer platitudes rolling their way,
to give less criticism,
to offer fewer opinions. . . .

. . . From now on, I will give them pictures they can live by,
pictures that can comfort them,
encourage them,
and keep them warm
in my absence.

Because when I’m gone, there will only be silence.
And memories. . . .

. . . Of all
I could give
to make their lives a little fuller,
a little richer,
a little more prepared
for the journey ahead of them,
nothing compares to the gift of remembrance—
pictures that show they are special
and that they are loved.

Pictures that will be there
when I am not.

Pictures that have within them
a redemption all their own.[ref]Ken Gire, A Father’s Gift: The Legacy of Memories (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1992), 51, 53, 57.[/ref]