Many people do not have a home; they only have a hotel because the only thing they do in their house is sleep. All of us need an awakening about our homes, not our houses, but making our houses into the homes they should be. A house is a place; a home is people.
It is sad to become older and discover many things you should have known about the true values in life when you were much younger. Godly parents can help their children place the emphasis in life where it should be placed.
All adults have deep dies cast. Just as our brows are wrinkled, our minds are creased with thoughts and ideas. I thought recently about my experience with my precious mother when she was dying. I was lying in the bed beside her, stroking her forehead. As I think about it now, I can still feel the deep wrinkles in her brow. She developed those from rearing four children and, for the most part, doing it alone. I am comforted by the fact that the next time I see her, her face will be fresh with eternal youth. Just as she developed those wrinkles on her outward appearance, she developed through the years into a certain type of person. Home is to be the center for this development.
We need to reconsider the golden moments we have in our homes. How precious it is to have a meal together and have everyone there. It is precious to have children at home and have the opportunity to talk with them. It is precious to be able to sit down and share conversations about the goodness of God. He has given us language and we can communicate, not only with words, but also with feelings of love and commitment. We need to seize the golden moments that God gives us in our homes to speak for Christ and to honor God.
Every child should feel as if he is in the safest, sweetest, most joyous place on the face of the earth when he walks in the front door of his house. Mom and Dad must work at this. Mom and Dad have to diligently say, “We’re going to do something for our children that will remain with them all the days of their lives. We’re going to seize the golden moments that God gives us at home. We are going to work diligently at making our home the right kind of place.”
Hurry is the scourge of family life. We have more time-saving devices than any other generation that ever lived. Because of this, we attempt to do more in limited amounts of time than any other generation attempted to do. Because we attempt to do so many things in so little time, we are always rushed and we have time for no one, not even ourselves. Every one of us will look back some day with regret that we did not seize more of the golden moments we had when we were together in our homes. How precious it is to be able to talk to our children as we sit in our houses. This is truly a golden moment.
And these words, which I command thee this day, shall be in thine heart: and thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up. And thou shalt bind them for a sign upon thine hand, and they shall be as frontlets between thine eyes. And thou shalt write them upon the posts of thy house, and on thy gates. Deuteronomy 6:6-9