Catholic Dads

How much time do you have? If you are like most people, you don’t have much. Me? Well, my full time job is as a youth minister and that takes up much of my time. And since youth ministry doesn’t pay very well, I also have a part-time job to help pay the bills and put food on the table. And…I have a wife and 5 children that need my time, too. So I understand a lack of time all too well.

Now…how much time do you waste? How much of your day is spent doing things that are unproductive and that serve no real purpose? I know I waste too much time. We all complain about not having enough time, yet we all waste our time away with things that don’t really matter.

Every relationship requires time. If you want to have a good relationship with your spouse, you need to spend time talking with her. If you want a good relationship with your children, you need to spend time with them. Likewise, if you want a good relationship with God, time in prayer is essential.

It’s that time in prayer that is most difficult for me. I work at a Catholic church. The Real Presence of Christ in  the Eucharist is right across the parking lot from my office. I need to pray as a part of my job responsibilities, for if I’m not filled with the fruits of the Spirit then I cannot feed others. I have no excuse to not pray. But I don’t take the time every day to go into the Church to spend with God. I allow myself to get distracted, sometimes with work, other times with time-wasting activities. When I sit down and think about it, it’s not my lack of time that keeps me from prayer, it’s my lack of discipline.

This Sunday’s 2nd reading is from the Letter to the Hebrews. In it we read:

At the time, all discipline seems a cause not for joy, but for pain, yet later it brings the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who are trained by it.

This reading couldn’t have come at a better time in my life. I’ve been discussing with my wife all week my need to be more disciplined in my life and in my prayer. Yet, discipline is not easy. It may, and most likely will, cause some initial pain. Yet the fruit of discipline is wonderful.

My challenge, to myself, and to all who read this, is to find time to pray. Start with 5 minutes a day. All of us can give God 5 minutes a day. If possible, go to a Church before or after work, or during your lunch break, and sit before the tabernacle. Give God 5 minutes. Be disciplined about it, too. Do it every day with consistency. After time you will find that 5 minutes stretching into 10, 20, even 30 minutes. And you will also find that you have more time for other things in your life.

There is a story about Mother Theresa. One day she was expecting some big dignitaries to visit. So she gathered all the other nuns and said, “Sisters, we have a big day ahead of us to prepare for these dignitaries. We have a lot to do. We will be very busy all day long. So, instead of spending 3 hours in prayer today, we will spend 5.”

God has the ability to create time for us to do the things we need to do. We just need to choose to spend time with Him.

Close Bookmark and Share This Page

Save to Browser Favorites / Bookmarks

Ask backflip blinklist BlogBookmark Bloglines BlogMarks Blogsvine BuddyMarks BUMPzee! CiteULike co.mments Connotea del.icio.us

Digg diigo DotNetKicks DropJack dzone Facebook Fark Faves Feed Me Links Friendsite folkd.com Furl Google

Hugg Jamespot Jeqq Kaboodle kirtsy linkaGoGo LinkedIn LinksMarker Ma.gnolia Mister Wong Mixx MySpace MyWeb

Netvouz Newsvine oneview OnlyWire PlugIM Propeller Reddit Rojo Segnalo Shoutwire Simpy Slashdot Sphere

Sphinn Spurl Squidoo StumbleUpon Technorati ThisNext Twitter Webride Windows Live Worlds Movies Yahoo!

Email This to a Friend

Copy HTML: 

 If you like this then please subscribe to the RSS Feed.

Powered by Bookmarkify™

More »