Stay Out Of The Pit

CORE PRACTICE #93: Keep your priorities straight: put faith and family first.

The LORD grants wisdom! From his mouth come knowledge and understanding. —Proverbs 2:6

Lauren

The view from the top of the Grand Canyon is breathtaking. In places, the gorge is eighteen miles across and, in others, a mile deep. It’s quite a reminder of the majesty of God’s creation.

But that chasm didn’t develop overnight. It was cut into the rock by water from the Colorado River, beginning its journey in the Rocky Mountains and eventually making its way into the Gulf of California and then the Pacific Ocean.

Water wearing down rock. Little by little. Most of it invisible to the naked eye as it happens. Just wearing it down.

That happens with our lives too. We know what matters to us. And then, so often, other things start to encroach on our time and our attention. Tony saw coaches spend a little extra time in the office one day to catch up or get ahead. Not a bad thing.

And then they did it again. And again. And then that “little more time” became the new normal. And then they tried to get ahead again by staying even later.

It’s not just men. I’ve watched women do it too. We start down a particular path, make an exception, and then the exception becomes the rule.

People have the amazing ability to acclimate, and the ability to adapt is critical as we grow and change. I remember when Tony and I were first married. We were both working at the time and found it relatively easy to live within our means. A few years later, I stopped teaching to stay home full time with Tiara. We were down to one income. That required an initial adjustment, but we acclimated to it.

We acclimated to other changes, too. When Tony worked with the Kansas City Chiefs, the coaching staff was expected to work much longer hours than he’d been used to doing in Pittsburgh. As a result, he had less time to spend with our children. After an initial adjustment, however, that became our new normal.

The danger, of course, is that these adjustments—sometimes imperceptible at first—widen until the day you find yourself staring into a chasm eighteen miles wide and a mile deep.

The good news: We can redirect our actions again. When we do, we may be startled by the positive change in our lives. I remember how, during the first few weeks after Tony’s retirement, the kids would come home and ask, “Is Dad still here?” They were so excited that he wouldn’t be going anywhere. And Tony happily slipped into the role of being a full-time dad—at least for a time.

You don’t have to wait for retirement or to make a job change to reset your course. I encourage you to refresh yourself and your family by taking a look at your priorities at regular intervals.

Don’t wait until you’re staring into a pit that looks too deep to pull yourselves out of.

Adventure Application: Establish some preappointed times to meet to discuss how well you’re living by the priorities you’ve set for your family. You might choose to do this monthly, making a note on the calendar for each designated time. Schedule your first check-in within the next two weeks.