As moms, there are a lot of demands on our time. And if you have small children like I do, then you have a lot of moments when the urgent overtakes the important. And sometimes there are two {or more!} urgent things happening at the same time. As in, dinner may be burning in the oven, but if my child is finger painting with the contents of his diaper – well, sometimes dinner just gets served a little burnt as I stop the art in progress.

We’re constantly forced to choose.

What are we going to do?
When are we going to do it?
Why? Where? With whom? For how long?

But there is one critical aspect of our lives that should never be left out.

In fact, if you take this one thing away, everything else will become skewed.

Your goals, desires, emotions, and thoughts all depend on this. As do your parenting, marriage, and relationships.

What is it?
your time in the Word.

Why is this the most important thing a mom can do?
Because as moms, we’re constantly giving – both in our words and actions. I’m constantly interacting with my children – acting & reacting. And when I’m responding to something they’re doing – whether their action is right or wrong – I’m responding immediately.

It’s a fact of life: when my chocolate milk gets bumped into, chocolate milk is what spills out.

What happens when someone bumps – or slams – into you?
When your child is a grumpycat all day long? When the family doesn’t appreciate your work and your spouse seems to take you for granted? When your teenager yells at you and goes against everything you’ve ever taught?
What spills out of you during tough times? For that matter, what spills out during amazingly awesome times?

What spills out? It’s whatever you’ve put in.

I can’t expect to have Biblical truths to share with my fighting children if I’m never filling my mind with those truths.
I will never be able to help my children apply the Gospel to their daily lives if I’m not first applying it to my daily problems and joys.
Perhaps the reason why that ‘other’ mom/dad always seems to have a good answer for her children is because she’s training her mind with the answers from God’s Word.

Maybe it’s time to dwell richly in God’s Word.
Maybe it’s time to stop checking facebook and instagram as soon as I wake up and instead check my heart into God’s Word.
Maybe it’s time to stop asking google & my mom friends what I should do and instead search God’s Word for the answer.

I am deeply burdened by my own need to soak into the Truth of God’s Word. More. and More. and More.
And I’m also deeply burdened for you – my fellow moms, friends, peers. Because the internet is a loud place. And there are a lot of loud people and influences in your life.

And if you are not filtering these things through the grid of God’s Word, then you are using a false grid of your own making.
If you are not dwelling richly in the Word,
then you’re dwelling on something else.
If your thoughts aren’t being influenced by God’s words,
then they’re being influenced by someone else.
If God’s Truth doesn’t have a grip on your heart, then something else does.

What are you reading? Watching? Listening to?
It is filling your mind. And it is spilling out onto your kids. 

Let your mind be filled with the truth of God’s Word. And so pour it out on those around you.

“Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly”
Colossians 3:16

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