The tears welled up in her eyes as she quietly shared. “Our daughter just wants her father to spend time with her and celebrate her. But there’s a church event planned for the same night as her 15th birthday, and since he’s the pastor … he says we can celebrate her birthday a couple months later.”
Our OMS Ecuador team was serving a group of pastoral couples on retreat, while Margaret Neff from OMS Mexico taught on the “Theology of Suffering.” Can we bring our struggles and pain honestly to God? Can we share with each other authentically when we’re angry with God, when we don’t understand why we go through hard things?
A large part of the teaching focused on building healthy relationships: growing deep in God by spending Sabbath with him, strengthening our marriages by investing time in each other, and honoring our families by not putting them on the back burner. Our children need to know they’re not their parents’ last priority. It’s not biblical for them to get the dregs of our time and energy after all the needs of the church and ministry have been met. Putting our families last actually hurts our churches. It sets an example that can lead to broken marriages and resentful, hurting children.
These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up (Deuteronomy 6:6-7. NIV).
How will we impress God’s commands on our children if we never have time to sit at home with them? This passage looks to me like there are conversations around the dinner table, family walks, bedtime prayers, and mornings where we interact with each other. Living this out not only speaks volumes to our children of the Father’s love, but it also models a healthy rule of life to our ministry partners.
This gentle woman had been keeping her pain to herself. This godly, dedicated pastor thought he was doing the right thing by putting the church above all else. As we confronted our traditions and misconceptions with the truth of God’s Word, a fresh touch of his Holy Spirit began working a change.
“You’ll never believe what God has done!” she whispered excitedly to me. “My husband said, ‘As soon as we get home, the three of us need to sit down and talk about the best way to celebrate our daughter’s birthday.’ We were lying outside on the grass talking, which is the only reason I didn’t fall right over!”
By Rebecca Pazmiño, OMS Regional Director, Latin America/Caribbean
