Our family has been in major transition.

A few months ago, we moved 1,200 miles away from our 15-acre farm in rural Tennessee to the bustling pace of city life in metro central Florida.

As if that wasn’t enough change, I also began working for a company that now takes me away from home all day except for lunch hour. Previously I worked in my office at my home and was accessible to my wife and children throughout the day.

These factors have brought major change to our family, created stress, and challenged my marriage and family.

Without going into details, let me just say that this period of transition has given me many opportunities to practice what I preach as a family dad.

Do I really put my family above my work? Am I really willing to put hobbies, ministry, and pretty much everything else below family with my schedule? Is my marriage really worth the effort?

And these questions truly are a big part of the core message I’ve been sharing for over 4 years now. A message to prioritize our wife and our family. A message to take proactive leadership of our family. A message to be strategic, and not just reactive. Nor passive.

For me in this new season, it means spending time with my family in the mornings, eating breakfast together before work, being with my children as they do their morning chores before school. And having conversation together as a family.

It means taking walks with my wife in the evenings. Taking her out for dinner regularly to just spend time together as a couple and let her “unload” without the kids around.

It means reading Scripture together as a family at nights. Helping with getting the younger kids to bed. Talking with my older kids about their day — and listening. And verbally blessing my wife and children.

How about you, fellow dad? Any transition happening in your life? Any adjustments you need to make to your schedule and actions?

It’s so easy for us dads to just get “wrapped up” in work and other stuff. But our wives are more “fragile” than we men are and can only put up with so much from us.

And we only have a window of time to shape our children during their childhood while they are still home living with us. We only get one shot with our massive influence as fathers.

I want to do it right, don’t you?

A long-time FamilyDads subscriber named Steve recently emailed me a story that may challenge and encourage you today:

Steve worked as a a graphic designer/art director for the past 15 years at a top notch firm in Seattle. He was blessed to work in a field that he enjoys and that always presented new challenges, working with tiny start-ups all the way to bigger national clients, doing projects like logos, posters, web sites, packaging, advertising, merchandising and even some video.

But there was a problem.

Steve’s job was VERY demanding, and he was tied to an office away from his family most of the week. His wife was feeling very isolated from her husband, raising the kids and running the home without his input or leadership much of the time. And their marriage wasn’t doing so well either.

Steve and I emailed back and forth about this.

After much prayer and discussion with his wife, Steve took a very courageous step. He gave notice to his employer that he would be leaving his very secure, well-paying job. This happened last year in 2010 by the way… not the rosiest of times in our economy.

I reconnected with Steve recently and asked him how things were going with his work, and more importantly his family.

Steve spent a short time freelancing after leaving his job. Then, an old client asked him to take a position at their company that is a leader in their industry.

Today Steve drives to an office very close to his home, is able to eat lunch with his family every day, enjoys 3-day weekends, and has much less work-related stress.

His marriage and his family are doing much better too. In Steve’s words, “God has really provided for our family in a way that I hadn’t anticipated. My connection with my wife has been better than it ever has in our 16 years of marriage. Wished I had acted sooner.”

That’s what keeps many of us dads from stepping up for our family. Fear of lack of provision. But Scripture tells us…

“Trust in YHUH with all your heart and do not lean on your own understanding. In all Your Ways acknowledge Him and He will make your paths straight.” -Prov 3:5-6

We must trust our Heavenly Father for our provision — not our work. He will make our paths straight as we trust Him with all our hearts. That doesn’t mean we just quit a job we don’t like, but that we are led by Him and trust Him, rather than the false security of money.

Blessings to you and your family,
Joey, a fellow Family Dad

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Today I’d like to tell you a story about a friend of mine named Tommy.

Tommy grew up in middle Tennessee, went to college where he played football, married his high school sweetheart, and landed a nice corporate job with FedEx.

It occurred to Tommy one day that he was spending more time with those gathered around the conference room table at the office than with those gathered around his kitchen table — his family.

The Heavenly Father began to put in Tommy a yearning to be together with his family. He ended up leaving his corporate job, picking up his family, and moving two hours away from the big city to basically start over again — only this time with different priorities.

Today, Tommy and his family share a deep, united love for one another. They are involved in a remarkable work half way around the world in a fragile, unstable part of Israel serving independent farmers — something Tommy would have never been able to do with his corporate job.

His journey has been indescribably rewarding for both Tommy and his family. In Tommy’s own words… “As I look back, the sacrifice was minimal compared to what I’ve gained… what we’ve all gained.”

Now, my point in telling you Tommy’s story is not to try and convince you to do what Tommy did with his family (unless you are led to!), but rather to encourage you with a story of how one dad’s heart turned to his family, and the direction and calling a family can receive as a result of courageously and obediently stepping out from cultural norms and putting family above work and career.

If you struggle balancing work and family, and work tends to get the bulk of your time each week, let me encourage you to make this struggle a serious matter of prayer and contemplation.

As the Heavenly Father draws your heart to your family, let Him guide you in making the decisions and choices that will be best for your family, even if that means making financial adjustments.

Get wise counsel, walk by faith, and remember that our window of time to raise our children is short and swift. And we dads have a high “Kingdom Calling” to lead our families, disciple our children, and who knows what work our family may be called to?!

PS – Tommy’s story has been turned into a DVD documentary called A Journey Home that has won several awards and inspiried many other dads and their families.

Tommy and Sherry were typical American parents. He was a manager at FedEx and she was a soccer mom raising two boys. But when the pressures of work began to affect their family, they chose to make significant changes to their lives to prioritize their family.  A Journey Home is the remarkable true story of divine intervention and a decision to choose family over work and career.

Watch the Trailer and Learn More

Last week I got creative with our family white board, which we usually use for Scripture teaching or school-related work.

As my children curiously watched me grab one dry-erase marker after another, I drew a picture of my brain in the middle with lots of bubble-captions all around it. Each bubble consisted of something that is currently weighing on my mind.

And I ran out of space on the white board trying to list everything!

My goal was to show my wife and children all the things and “projects” that consume much of my thoughts so they would know why I often feel overwhelmed and “focused” much of the time.

This morning I told my wife I was transferring all these “thoughts” into a text file on my computer.

That’s when she dropped a bomb on me. A huge bomb.

She said… “Make sure you include your children on your list.”

Ka-BOOM! Whoa! I had not even so much as written their names on the white board!

And yet, outside of my faith and my wife, they are the highest priorities in my life. Or are they?

Why did I not start at the top of the white board by listing my wife and children first??? Probably because I take them for granted too much of the time. Truth be told, it is more like MOST of the time.

This was a convicting reminder, once again, that I have to be continually INTENTIONAL — even VIGILANT — about communicating to each person in my family how important they are to me.

And not just with my words, but also with my time, my schedule, my actions.

That means some of the things on my white board won’t get done. At least not as soon as I want them to. But that’s part of being a family dad. We know the importance of prioritizing our family, and we are willing to “cheat” other things in our life so that our wife and children get more of our time and attention when they need it.

So… What’s on your white board?

Time for me to go make some modifications to mine.

From one family dad to another,
Joey Watkins
Host of FamilyDads.com

Our Family Whiteboard