In the July newsletter, Steve reflects on one of the greatest challenges facing families today: finding enough time for what matters most. Drawing on the Third Commandment, he explains how honoring Sunday helps restore proper priorities, frees families from becoming slaves to work and busyness, and creates more space for worship, rest, shared meals, and meaningful time together. Steve also offers six practical ways to reclaim family life and introduces Luke21’s upcoming study of the prophet Jeremiah, whose bold faith and uncompromising message offer a powerful model for young people seeking serious Christian discipleship
Finding Time for Family
Dedicated to the Memory of Charlie Kirk
During the months before his assassination, Charlie Kirk was discovering important truths. He realized the need to distance himself from dispensationalism (the rapture-at-any-moment theory and the misguided notion that God has distinct plans for saving Jews and Gentiles).
In addition, EWTN News reported that Charlie contacted a California bishop shortly before his murder about his interest in becoming a Catholic.
A month before his assassination, he completed his final book entitled Stop, in the Name of God: Why Honoring the Sabbath Will Transform Your Life. I just ordered his book. While waiting for it, I’m sharing my updated article on the same subject.
With AI and upcoming quantum computing, our society is traveling down the technological fast lane. Yet, we often seem unable to make time breakthroughs in the one area where it really matters – in the family.
In past generations, the chief challenge for parenting was providing enough daily bread. Providing for our families remains a formidable task, made even harder by rising prices.
Yet another great challenge is finding enough time each day for our families.
Managing time in a godly fashion is similar to managing money. We either make time and money our servants or we become their slaves. The primary way to escape bondage to both is to give the first portion of each to God. Those who serve God with their time and money become free.
Anyone interested in finding family time needs to rediscover God’s ancient principle of time management, found in one of the Ten Commandments. It is the only commandment that God says to “remember.” Amazingly, this is the very commandment we are prone to forget.
Exodus 20: 8 – Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy. 9 Six days you shall labor, and do all your work; 10 but the seventh day is a sabbath to the LORD your God; in it you shall not do any work, you, or your son, or your daughter, your manservant, or your maidservant, or your cattle, or the sojourner who is within your gates…
By “giving up” work time to God at the beginning of every week, we gain a sense of proper priorities, lasting values, and a life purpose. By ordering our week according to the third commandment, we gain God’s perspective on our time.
You will never hear a man towards the end of his life voicing regrets about spending too little time at the office. You will often hear regrets about not spending enough time with family.
How can we learn wisdom about prioritizing our time before we spend our time? The secret is remembering to observe the third commandment. Those who make time for God on Sunday by taking a day off from daily work lay the foundation for finding the time for their families all week long.
Here are six practical ways to observe the third commandment and to make time for your family.
1. Attend Mass every week with your family.
Get out of bed on Sunday morning! Parents, never drop off your children for catechetics while you go home, having never attended Mass.
2. Take a day off from your work.
Those who do not take a day off a week become slaves to their work, lose a sense of priorities, and inevitably spend inadequate time with their families. Get off the treadmill one day a week and touch the eternal. It is the way to keep your time and priorities in balance.
3. Arrange your shopping so that others can also take a day off from work.
Years ago, my wife, Karen, and I had the opportunity to sponsor a single mother with two young children who was entering the Church through an RCIA program. We were upset when her employer required her to work Sundays in the supermarket deli. If more Christians did their shopping on Saturday instead of Sunday, then people like this single mother might enjoy Sundays at church and at home with their children. God told the Israelites not even to make their cattle work on the Sabbath. Shouldn’t we do at least the same for our neighbor, particularly those in service-oriented jobs having little opportunity for alternative employment? The Catechism says, “Every Christian should avoid making unnecessary demands on others that would hinder them from observing the Lord’s Day” [Section 2195].
4. Daily, have at least one meal together as a family. (The evening meal is best.)
A recent survey of high-achieving teens revealed high school students who seldom (or never) eat dinner together with their families are almost four times as likely to engage in premarital intercourse and half as likely to spend time studying than those teens who regularly eat dinner with their families.
5. Limit screen time during mealtimes.
Teens spend an average of 7 hours and 22 minutes per day on screens (excluding schoolwork). Parent-teen communication is about 20 minutes a day. Don’t want your teen swallowed by the peer culture? Turn off screens. Eat together. Talk.
6. Write down your primary life goal on a piece of paper.
Write down that one big thing you want to accomplish in life. May I suggest the goal of having your family remain together in heaven for eternity? The Sabbath in the Old Testament and Sunday in the New Testament are foretastes of the eternal rest we will enjoy with Christ on the new (renewed) earth after the second coming. Make your time count for eternity by honoring Christ the first day of your week. God will return to you a life lived wisely.
Coming to Luke 21 podcasts in August….
Jeremiah
Next up in Luke 21’s study of biblical prophecy and prophets is Jeremiah. Here are a few reasons to join us for the Jeremiah episodes.
- The word of God in Jeremiah has an unparalleled directness, leaving its impact on the reader. “Thus says the Lord” is found 155 times in Jeremiah; that’s more than the rest of the Old Testament combined.
- There is more biographical data and information about the inner life of Jeremiah than for any other Old Testament prophet. Isaiah is cited by name 17 times, Ezekiel twice, and Jeremiah 125 times.
- How anyone teaching God’s word (priests, deacons, teachers, youth leaders, parents) can do so with life-changing impact by following Jeremiah’s example.
- Jeremiah prophesied for twenty-three years leading up to the downfall and destruction of the ancient nation of Israel. Were his warnings heeded? Is there any relevance for modern America?
- How to accurately predict the future of a nation? Jeremiah did it, and you can too.
- The golden secret to successful Christian living (and preventing faith washout) prophesied by Jeremiah that’s ignored by far too much of Catholicism today.
- To say that Jeremiah was “on fire for the Lord” is an understatement:
Jeremiah 5:14 … “behold, I am making my words in your mouth a fire.”
Jeremiah 20:9 … “there is in my heart as it were a burning fire shut up in my bones, and I am weary with holding it in, and I cannot.”
Why Study Jeremiah Now?
For those with eyes to see, something exceptional is occurring. I’m referring to the large numbers of young men seriously interested in Christianity. Gallup recently found that 42 percent of young men consider religion “very important” in their lives. That’s a 14-point jump just since 2023. Following Charlie Kirk’s assassination, Bible sales surged, thus adding fuel to the revival fire that God was already igniting.
These guys are not interested in Christianity-lite. Nor are they attracted by misguided pagan nonsense like Genesis19 blessing ceremonies. They want serious Christian discipleship.
Most scripture scholars believe Jeremiah was between sixteen and eighteen years old when called to his prophetic ministry. I find Jeremiah’s forceful prophetic ministry astonishing for someone so young. If the thousands of young men who desire to embrace real manly Christianity, then Jeremiah is a role model for what they seek.
My Request for Two Emails
First, please send an invitation to join Luke21 podcasts on Jeremiah to a young person you think may be interested. Second, send an email invitation to a young man you are nearly certain will never embrace Christianity. Please humor me and do it. I was one of those guys!
Yours in His Majesty’s Service,
Steve Wood
P.S. Many thanks to those who have financially supported our mission. It means a lot. We pray for our donors by name.
August 15th
We are grateful for the outpouring of support for Steve’s new book, Transforming Grace: How to Rescue Young Catholics Drowning in a Secular Culture. Our limited-time free book promotion will end on August 15, the Feast of the Assumption. After that date, Transforming Grace will be available solely through Amazon.
Visit RescuingYoungCatholics.com to request your copy with a donation of $1 or more in support of the Family Life Center.
Thank you for your continued prayers, generosity, and encouragement!