Case Study on Time in the Blended Family

              As Roger and Brenda were enjoying there evening worship with one another the phone rang.  Roger has had a steadfast rule from the time he and Brenda first got married.  Answering the phone during family time was not allowed.  He never let the kids do it, Brenda never did it, and Roger refused to do it.  Roger believed that it sent a bad message to the entire family.  To answer the phone during family time was not only disrespectful, but the action told everyone that “this unknown person who is calling me right now is more important to me than being with all of you right now.”  When the answering machine kicked on the voice on the other end said, “Roger this is Joe Gorske, I wanted to personally call you and tell you the good news, but since your not home . . .” Brenda looked at Roger and insisted, “You had better get this one.”  So without hesitating Roger quickly picked up the phone.   Mr. Gorske is one of the senior vice presidents at the corporation Roger works for and Roger was anticipating news from him as to weather or not he was getting the big promotion at work.  “Yes, Mr. Gorske,” Roger interrupted, “I’m home, you said you wanted to give me some good news?”  “You better believe it,” Mr. Gorske replied, “Welcome to the senior management division.” 

              Needless to say family worship ended abruptly that evening.  And Family worship was set aside for celebration.  Not only did this promotion include moving into a big office with a window but it also meant a substantial increase in pay.  Roger and Brenda were ecstatic.  When Roger went to work on Monday and after he received all his congratulatory pats on the back from his fellow colleagues, Roger found out things he was not so excited about.  First of all, next month he was required to spend three weeks in Dallas for senior management training.  The other thing Roger soon discovered was that all senior managers worked very long hours.  It was not unusual for many of them to work till 10 or 11 o’clock each night.  As a production supervisor Roger was always able to take steps toward separating his work from the rest of his life.  He was beginning to realize how this was not going to be possible as a senior manager. 

              The time to travel to Dallas came sooner than Roger anticipated.  Before he knew it he was on a plane and then in a hotel room overlooking the city.  Roger and Brenda had not made it a practice to spend time apart from one another, so these three weeks seemed to drag on forever.  Each night Roger would call home.  “I’ve missed our evenings together,” Roger would say, “Since I started this new job I feel like I’m never at home with you anymore.”  Brenda, trying to be supportive would often say, “I know things are stressful now but things will eventually get better, I’m sure.”   Roger told her “sometimes I’m working in my office when 8:30 rolls around and I always think about our evening worships and I just shake my head.  I wonder if this job is worth what I am missing at home.  Some of our fondest memories are of when the kids were young and we spent time in family worship, singing songs, praying our prayers and communicating our dreams.  I believe that our worship time was one of the things that kept our family together, now I feel like I am putting my work before God.”  

              After Roger returned home from Dallas, he told Brenda that he decided that he was not going to wait for everything to get done before he allowed time for himself and for family time anymore.  He said, “I will rarely, if ever find time for us to have evening worship unless I make time for it.  My calendar fills up faster with commitments than you could imagine, so from now on before anyone touches my calendar I’m blocking out time for us.  Even if we need to have our worship on the speaker phone, that’s our time from now on.”   

Discussion Questions:

1.  What distractions do you have in your life that interferes with family time or worship time?

2.  What are some steps that you can do to reduce those distractions?

3.  Which do you put ahead of the other, time with God or time for work?

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