The Productive Use of Time - The Family in Perspective

The Home is the most important environment in the society. Why this is so is because it houses the most important unit in the society - the family. We learn our first lesson about life in the home. The home provides the platform to learn, understand, and apply the basic lessons of life; launches each individual on the road to discovering ourselves and our role in the stages of life.

It is said that the first cut is the deepest. the first lesson is the best lesson . For it is the first lesson that determines our success and failure really. It is the first lesson that determines our interest and non-interest in the issues of life. So the home should be the most productive place in the world. It should receive more attention than any other environment in the society. It is said that we can determine the quality of life of any society by the quality of the family that makes up that society.

But what has modern society got to teach us, with all its advancment? A total neglect of the home. Today we spend more time in any other environment than we spend in the home. Look at the working structure, for example, of most countries in the world. We spend more time out there making a living than making a life. And what do we get in return? Divorces, Dishonesty, Corruption, Immorality, Terrorism, Robbery, Lack of Love, Gutlessness, an a upward of a thousand other vices. A completely bankrupt society.

There is so much going on in the world today that there is a complete drift from the most important to the less important. Almost all the economies of most nations of the world spend more money developing every other aspect of their society than they spend on the family. Yet the family is the bedrock of true progress of any nation. It is no longer news that the thousands of vices destroying the human race stems from the toal neglect of the family, which is the basic unit of the society.

Harold B. Lee, many years ago, saw the destructive tendency of the modern human society, when with a prophetic eye reiterated: "No success can compensate for failure in the home." So true today. Our most productive effort must be concentrated in the home. It is the only investment that is guaranteed from the very beginning, a 100% return on investment.

As members of the society, we can do more to better the society by concentrating more on the home.

There is an ancient script which says, and I quote: "For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also ." (Mathew 6: 21 - The Holy Bible)

Where we spend our most time is where our treasure is. And where our treasure is, there our heart will be. The family unit seem to be the only unit that would survive or outlive earth life. No other earthly unit would likely make it. But yet, it is treated as the least of the treasures of our society, if indeed we recognize it as a treasure at all.

As individuals, we must begin now the paradigm shift from the "societal treasures" to the most important of all treasures, the family. Inspite of how our society is structured, in terms of preference, we as individuals must begin to create our own preference for the family. We must begin to learn to be in the world but not of the world. We must learn to begin to spend more time making a life than making a living. We must begin the exodus from work to home in a big hurry. We must begin to spend more time with our wives and husbands and our children than any other established structure in the human sociey. The family - the home, must not be in a competitiion of time with any other unit in the society. In so doing, can we preserve the sacredness of the human family. This is productive use of time.

The earth is peopled through families. The earth is replenished through families. The earth is preserved through families. The earth is subdued through families. As individuals, the family unit deserves our best effort and time. It is the best investment we will ever make as humans. If we fail in our homes, we fail in our lives. Paraphrasing what is said earlier on, "no man is truly successful who had failed in his home.

We talk about the need for good leadership. Do you know that true leadership starts from the home? Where else is the best place to teach and practice respect for others and their views? Where else is the best place to teach and practice love for others, care for others, and the need to support others and lift them up? Ofcourse the home! The home is the best place to teach it.

"Train up a child in the way he should go and when he is old he would not depart from it." This is a scriptural reference for true leadership. That can only take place in the home.

All resources used to preserve the family - home, is resources well used. Let's begin now!