Choosing to Cheat

Everybody cheats. Shocking isn’t it? That is just one of many thoughts in the book Choosing to Cheat: Who Wins When Family and Work Collide by Andy Stanley. This was a book suggested during one of The Union marriage events in 2009. It is a short read (125 pages excluding the study guide) that helps shed some light on how we choose to prioritize our time between our family relationships and our work.

In the book, Stanley suggests that with the proper balance between family and work we can cultivate better relationships for God to bless, both at home and at work. We need a restoration of love and godly priorities & principles in our homes. Without those to follow we can get ourselves in trouble. We cannot afford to have an imbalance. Stanley says, “Reprioritizing your world around your family is not just a good idea. It is a God idea.”

One of my favorite quotes from the book is “actions speak louder than intentions.” When we tell our family that they are the most important thing in our life, we need to let our actions make that statement truth. Colossians 3 talks about how we are to love our families and do our jobs. Sometimes we get this backwards and start loving our jobs and doing our families. Stanley suggests when we do that we have “not only stepped outside the bounds of family life, you have stepped outside the will of God.”

Stanley, also, talked about how we cannot leave the success of our families to chance. We can sow the seed of time in our families and reap the fruits of success. “Happily married couples never attribute their success to unexpected opportunities, market conditions, luck, or good timing. You have never met a healthy family who chalked up their success to being in the right place at the right time. With family, success is always related to time.” When you invest time with your family, you can never go wrong.

So allow me to encourage you to read this book and take inventory of the time you spend with your family and the time you spend away. Remember you are the only spouse or parent people have, and we aren’t as expendable in our families as we are on the job.