How a Small Decision at Work Can Impact on Your Family in the Long Term
Have you ever underestimated the impact of a small decision?
An extra business dinner here, another 12-hour day there, and one more work trip than normal never hurt anyone, right? After all, as men, don’t we find ourselves justifying small decisions like these ones because we’re providing for our families? It’s not like we’re slacking or just working for fun!
Even when our spouse or our children complain, we know that we have an ace up our sleeve. “Don’t you want to go on that trip to Hawaii?” “Don’t you like playing hockey?” “Don’t you…don’t you…don’t you…?”
While most of us could go on and on with all of the good and righteous reasons we’re doing all this extra work for the sake of our families, it’s hard not to wonder whether we’re actually doing all of this at the expense of our families. Instead of building a better life for our families, are we actually building a better life for somebody else while sacrificing our families on the altar of work?
Instead of building a better life for our families, are we actually building a better life for somebody else while sacrificing our families on the altar of work?
It’s all of those small decisions…
That small decision to take on one more client. That small decision to stay an extra hour. That small decision to supervise one more person. And that small decision to take on one more project. It’s so easy to underestimate the impact that small decisions have over the long haul—especially when you’re constantly adding without taking anything away.
Unfortunately, we often underestimate the impact that small decisions have over the long haul.
Let’s look at this from another perspective
If you hardly ever saw your children, what kind of relationship do you think you would have with them? If you were more concerned about climbing the corporate ladder than eating dinner with your family, how do you think they would view you? And if you opted to go on a guy’s trip with your buddies, rather than a family vacation with your children, what do you think the long-term consequence would be?
And with your wife – what would it look like if instead of talking and connecting intimately in bed, you just watched your own separate shows on Netflix beside each other? Instead of going on weekly dates, it was yearly ones? And instead of praying with one another, you just texted each other your prayer requests—if even that?
You’re probably thinking, “I would never be that kind of father or husband. I would never let things get to that. That’s horrible.”
If so, that’s exactly what those guys said too.
No man ever longs for or sets out to be distant from his children or wife. I’ve never heard a guy on his wedding day vow to his wife to be an absent-minded, over-worked partner who will value his career over his marriage and family.
No man ever longs for or sets out to be distant from his children or wife.
It just happens…one small decision at a time.
So, what small decisions do you need to intentionally stop and start making so that you can be the man that God has called you to be? A husband who loves his wife, “just as Christ loved the church and gave himself for her?” (Ephesians 5:25 CSB). And a father who commits to bringing his children “up in the training and instruction of the Lord” (Ephesians 5:4 CSB)?
Being this kind of husband and father does not happen by chance. It only happens one small decision at a time.
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