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Fresh Start Devotionals


June 30


Are You in the Picture?

We’ve had a bad habit for several years, we load the film in the camera, take the pictures, and then put the roll of film in a dresser drawer. Recently, Susan’s been taking a few rolls a week to get them developed. We never know what we’re going to see when we open the package. It’s the closest we get to playing the lottery.

The pictures range from snapshots of church functions to pictures of our children when they were tiny, but they do have one thing in common—Susan isn’t in the picture. Why? She’s the official family photographer.

While thumbing through the pictures, I remembered a story Pastor Dan Rhodes told me last year. Dan is the pastor of two rural churches in Colorado and stays busy. Like most pastors, he has plenty to do, but by being the pastor of two churches, he has twice the committee meetings, and twice the worship services.

As Dan tells the story, his daughter’s third grade teacher requested a parent teacher conference with him. His wife usually took care of those conferences, but the teacher wanted to see him, not his wife.

At her insistence, he made an appointment to drop by the school in the afternoon. “I wanted you to see this drawing your daughter made of your family.” She said. Dan looked at the drawing and asked, “Where am I?” “That’s why I called you down here today, I asked your daughter the same question and she said you’re never home so she left you out of the picture.”

A Mike Tyson punch couldn’t hurt any more than her words. Dan made some radical changes in his behavior and found that he could do his job and be a good father.

Are you in the picture with your family? Or are you too busy?


Jim L. Wilson, Fresh Start Devotionals (Fresno, CA: Willow City Press, 2009).

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