30 lessons from 30 family moments

I spent 30 straight days a while back intentionally building at least one family memory a day. Some of them were simple while others were a little costly. Some of them were with both my wife, Ces, and daughter, Alex, while some were with one of each of them at a time.

After 30 days passed, I felt like I had built up one whole decade of meaningful time, and it was amazing! The truth is that not a lot of families actually get the opportunity to do this, but I really hope and pray that more will be able to because nothing beats building memories with family. It’s magical, it’s God-ordained and it’s effective.

Here are just 30 of the many lessons that I learned from those past 30 days of intentionally building family memories.

1. It’s never going to be easy to intentionally spent time with your family, but it’s always going to be worth it.
2. Don’t expect to build family memories without putting out some money, but there’s no return on investment better than investing on your spouse and children. But it doesn’t have to be expensive or grand either!
3. The greatest need my daughter and wife will ever have is not a nice house, car, toys, etc… but more time with a father and a husband.
4. It will sometimes be more convenient to ignore the need to spend time with family, but we have to build the discipline of doing so.
5. Family memories are one of the very few things on earth that you can have that will not be detrimental to you.
6. You need no less than the grace of God to have the energy to be excellent at both work and at home, but God will never withhold anything less than His grace when you set your heart to that.
7. Spending time with the family can be exhausting at times, but your heart will always be full.
8. In fact, family time is the only energy-draining event that will not burn you out.
9. #30daysoffamilymoments was so far my best remedy to experiencing stress and burn-out at work.
10. Alexa became more obedient and compliant after I spent a minimum of two hours of the day just fully focused on her and her mom.
11. Deliberately finding ways to surprise your spouse is the most effective way to see them excel in what they do.
12. Your spouse doesn’t always need your advice, but they will always need your love and affection.
13. TV and social media become tasteless when you start building a habit of thinking of new things for you and your family to do.
14. I also noticed that I needed one hour less of sleep a day because I felt emotionally rested when spending deliberate time with my family (science, yeah!)
15. I also found I had more time to exercise and stay fit after being intentional with daily family time.
16. Not only is family time cute to watch. It’s viral. I’m glad that some friends said they were inspired by seeing the photos and started spending more time with their family.
17. My boss neither reprimanded me or fired me from asking for half a day off once or twice to take my wife and daughter out.
18. I felt more rested and energized in the morning ever since I started doing family time intentionally.
19. Time management skills improved after doing #30daysoffamilymoments.
20. Alone time is great, but not as great as the individual dates I took Alexa and Ces out to.
21. No matter how busy you are at work, you will always have time for family!
22. I became more effective and inspired at work as a result of spending time with my family.
23. I never once felt stale about spending time with my kids.
24. Seeing how your daughter and wife go about their daily lives is the most wonderful thing to watch. Beats reality TV anytime!
25. I have had to discipline Alexa less eversince I have been more present at home.
26. My finances have never been better after spending deliberate time with the family despite all the gifts, eat outs and dates I had to spend on.
27. The more that you learn about your spouse, the more you will fall in love with Him or her.
28. God wants you to spend time with your family. If He didn’t, He would have never given me this crazy idea!
29. We honor, worship and pray to God best when we spend time with our family.
30. God’s voice becomes much clearer when you spend time deliberately with your family.

So that’s it! I actually had more, but maybe I’ll do those in other posts. I hope this inspires you to spend more time with your family (if you’re single, you can do this with your siblings and parents!) and honor God through family time.