We Filled Every Minute… and Lost the Most Important Thing
I was thinking the other day about Sundays when I was a kid. They were kind of boring, and I mean that in the best possible way.
You went to church. You came home. Maybe you changed out of your church clothes, somebody turned the football game on, and there was food cooking somewhere in the house. Maybe you went to Grandma's. Maybe you sat around the table longer than you needed to. There wasn't always something happening, and nobody seemed terribly concerned about that.
Sometimes you actually had to figure out what to do with yourself. Somehow we survived.
Actually, I think there was something really healthy about it.
The week had a stop in it.
Sunday felt different. It wasn't simply another open day on the calendar waiting for us to cram something into it.
Today, I don't know that many families have a stop anymore. We just keep going.
Monday through Friday is school, work, practices, homework, meetings, appointments, errands, and everything else we can squeeze in. Then Saturday fills up. Then Sunday fills up. Before long, every square on the calendar has something written in it, and if one of those squares is empty, we almost feel like we should put something there.
We've gotten really uncomfortable with having nothing to do.
If the kids aren't involved in something, we start wondering whether they should be. There is another league, another lesson, another camp, another tournament, another clinic, another opportunity that might help them get ahead.
And I understand the pressure. Nobody wants their kid to miss out. Nobody wants to be the parent who says no while everyone else's kid is getting more coaching, more playing time, more experience, and more opportunities.
So we sign up.
Then we sign up for the next thing.
Pretty soon, the family has joined this strange race where nobody really remembers where we're going, but everybody is exhausted trying to get there.
I don't think sports are bad. I loved sports growing up, and they can teach kids a lot of really good things. Discipline, teamwork, perseverance, how to win without becoming obnoxious, and how to lose without falling apart.
This really isn't an article about sports.
Sports are just one of the easiest places to see what has happened to us.
There was a time when sports fit into family life. Increasingly, family life has to fit around sports.
Dad is going one direction. Mom is going another. One kid has a game, another has practice, somebody is eating in the car, somebody forgot their shoes, and everybody is irritated because everybody is late. You finally get home, throw some laundry in, repack the bags, and start getting ready to do it all again.
The house becomes less like home and more like a pit stop.
And somehow we have accepted that this is just what life is supposed to feel like.
Busy means we're doing well. A full calendar means the kids are thriving. Exhaustion means we're committed.
I'm not sure that's true.
Sometimes I wonder if one of the healthiest things we could give our families is something we almost never give them anymore: a little bit of nothing.
Not nothing all day, every day. I'm not talking about everybody lying around staring at the ceiling for the rest of their childhood. I'm talking about margin. Time when nobody has to be somewhere. Time when nobody is being entertained. Time when there isn't a coach, teacher, screen, schedule, or activity telling everyone what happens next.
We have almost removed boredom from childhood, and I'm not convinced that's entirely good.
When we were bored, we had to do something with it. We wandered outside. We made things up. We bothered our siblings. We rode bikes. We stared out the window. We talked. We thought. Eventually, imagination kicked in because nobody had arranged the next two hours for us.
Families need that kind of space too.
Sometimes Mom and Dad need to sit down long enough to have a conversation that isn't about who has to be where next. Brothers and sisters need time together that isn't organized by an adult. Dinner occasionally needs to last longer than twenty minutes. Sometimes somebody ought to fall asleep on the couch while a football game is on and nobody should feel guilty about it.
We've become so uncomfortable with empty space that we treat it like a problem that needs to be solved.
Maybe it isn't a problem.
Maybe some of the best parts of family life happen in the spaces where nothing impressive is happening.
For Christian families, there is another part of this that is worth thinking about. Somewhere in all of our running, church has become one more thing fighting for a spot on the calendar.
We'll go if the game is later. We'll catch another service if the tournament ends in time. We'll go next week because this weekend is packed. We aren't consciously deciding that church doesn't matter. Most families would never say that.
But kids are paying attention to what we protect.
They know what we'll wake up at 5:30 in the morning for. They know what we'll drive three hours for. They know what we'll spend money on. They know what the whole family schedule gets rearranged around.
And they also know what gets bumped when the calendar gets tight.
We can tell our kids that God comes first, but eventually they learn to read the family calendar.
That doesn't mean missing church makes somebody a bad Christian. Families travel. People work. Kids have games. Life happens. This isn't about turning Sunday into a religious checklist or making parents feel guilty every time something comes up.
The bigger question is what has become normal.
There is a little picture in Acts that I love because it feels so simple.
Acts 2:46
“And day by day, attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes, they received their food with glad and generous hearts.”
They gathered together. They worshiped. They went home. They ate together.
There is something peaceful about that picture.
There was room in their lives for God, room for other people, room around the table, and room in the day. I know life in the first century wasn't easy, and I'm not trying to pretend it was some simpler, perfect time. But there is a rhythm there that I think we have lost.
Maybe that is part of what Sunday could become again.
Not a list of rules. Not some legalistic idea that nobody is allowed to do anything fun. Not a day where we sit around judging everybody who has a soccer game.
Just a day that we protect a little more carefully.
Go to church. Come home. Eat together. Watch the game. Visit Grandma. Take a nap. Let the kids tell you they're bored.
And maybe don't immediately fix their boredom.
Maybe they don't need us to fix it.
Maybe none of us do.
Because the truth is, our kids are going to play a lot of games that nobody will remember. Most of those scores will disappear almost immediately. The uniform eventually gets packed away, the trophies end up in a box, and even the really gifted athletes eventually reach a day when nobody is keeping score anymore.
But they'll remember home.
They'll remember Sunday dinner. They'll remember sitting next to Mom or Dad in church. They'll remember the smell of something cooking in the kitchen. They'll remember cousins showing up, falling asleep during the football game, and having afternoons when nobody had anywhere they needed to be.
Those things don't look impressive on a calendar.
They might be more important than we realize.
We keep telling ourselves we're doing all of this for our kids. Maybe sometimes one of the best things we can do for them is stop doing so much.
Give them some room. Give the family some room. Give God some room.
Maybe it's time to give Sunday back.
