Sunday Rewind

Yesterday we kicked off a new series called "Four Dumb Things Smart People Do". Great title for a series, huh?

Andy began by telling a story of something quite dumb that we did recently. When we were in San Francisco celebrating our anniversary two weeks ago, we went to a Giants game with a couple friends who were in town on our last night there. We loaded our car and checked out of the hotel before heading to the game, and then we rode over to the stadium with our friends. Unfortunately, we did not realize that the parking garage where our car was closed at 11 PM. So when we showed up at 11:05 after we got back from the game, we were rather dismayed to find that our car was locked up and all of our belongings were in it! To make a long story short, we ended up sleeping on the floor of our friend's hotel room until we were able to retrieve our car 7 hours later! Stupid stuff. In the words of Dave Ramsey, "I've done stupid with zeros on the end!"

fun times vs. not so much

Andy taught yesterday about the mistake many people make in sacrificing their family for their career. He began by saying that it is possible to win at work and at home, but when the two collide family must when or we end up losing at both.

In our society, we place such value on what we're able to produce. Often the first question we ask someone when we meet them is, "What do you do for a living?" Much of our identity is wrapped up in our career so to be successful at work seems like the path to being successful in life. It's easy to see the reward of spending an extra 30 minutes at work, and the results are much less tangible if you come home 30 minutes early.

But the reality is, the investment we make into our families carries far greater weight than the investment we make into our careers. We may not be able to define our "success" as clearly or as rapidly at home (it takes 20 years to raise a child), but our failure at home has a devastating impact on every area of our lives. If you can't get the job done at work, your company will replace you with someone else and never miss a beat. But if I fail to fulfill my God given role at home, I am the ONLY wife Andy will ever have and the ONLY mother Caedmon will ever have.

This is such a needed message in our society...especially here in the Silicon Valley. A mom with 4 adult daughters came up to us after the service with tears in her eyes saying, "My daughters need to hear this." You can listen to the message by clicking here.