Good Advice

It was too good an opportunity. I might never see him again, and as he was one of the most prominent evangelists in the denomination, I felt I had to act while I could. “Pastor,” I began, “would you mind giving me some advice?” A look of concern crossed his face. “Why, of course,” he replied, his brow furrowing.

“Advice about what? Is there a problem?” “No, not at all,” I responded. “I’d just appreciate it if you could give me some advice —about anything at all.” He looked away momentarily before looking back to me and saying, “Put your family first.” He then repeated himself. “Put your family first.” As he elaborated briefly, those four words etched themselves into my mind. My wife and I had no children at the time, but knowing something of the elderly evangelist’s personal experience, I felt this was advice worth heeding, advice he wished his own father might have taken. “Put your family first.” God has been very clear in communicating with members of the church their great responsibility to reach the world with the gospel. “ ‘You are My witnesses,’ says the LORD, ‘And My servant whom I have chosen’ ” (Isaiah 43:10). “You are the light of the world,” Jesus said in Matthew 5:14, during the Sermon on the Mount. And in the Great Commission, Jesus charged His disciples throughout all ages, saying, “Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations” (Matthew 28:19). In light of all this, however, God will one day ask of parents, “Where is the flock that was given to you, your beautiful sheep?” (Jeremiah 13:20). Children are “a heritage from the LORD” (Psalm 127:3).

No greater gift could be committed to the care of a husband and wife. And while perfect parents can never be found, God desires parents to make the home their primary field of evangelistic labor. Efforts made to reach children with the gospel and to model the love of God will be richly repaid. Of all the questions God could ask, few could be more important. “Where is the beautiful flock that was given you?”