Pervasive Issues

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J a m e s C . D o b s o n , P h . D .

Priorities

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Priorities by James C. Dobson, Ph.D.

For three decades Dr. James Dobson has been America’s leading authority and advocate for the family. Taken from the bestseller Dr. Dobson’s Handbook of Family Advice, this Special Report is full of helpful information for families at all stages. Let’s read along now as Dr. Dobson discusses Priorities:

The Disease of Materialism

I remember seeing an advertisement from a large bank that encouraged people to borrow money, asking the question: “What do you need to make you happy?”

How foolish, I thought, to believe that a new car or a boat or even a house can hold the keys to personal satisfaction. Materialism is a disease that infects the human family— and it’s not a problem only in affluent cultures.

Author and financial counselor Ron Blue tells the story of visiting a small, rural village in Africa. Ron asked a native there what was the biggest problem facing his village. The man said, “Materialism.” Ron was taken aback. He expected it to be the lack of food or medical attention, or perhaps problems with neighboring villages. But materialism? These villagers didn’t have televisions or cars or satellite dishes—the sorts of things we associate with “the good life.”

But this villager told Ron, “If a man has a mud hut, he wants one made out of cow manure. If he has a cow manure hut, he wants a stone hut. If he has a thatch roof, he wants a tin roof. If he has one acre, he wants two. Materialism is a disease of the heart. It has nothing to do with where you live.”

That’s probably the simplest and best explanation of materialism I’ve heard. And it might hit pretty close to where you live.

Take a good hard look at the loved ones in your life—and then tell me where your real priorities are.

It’s the Simple Things That Count

You don’t have to spend huge amounts of money to have a meaningful family life. Children love the most simple, repetitive kinds of activities. They want to be read the same stories hundreds of times and hear the same

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jokes long after they’ve heard the punch lines. These interactions with parents are often more fun than expensive toys or special events.

A friend of mine once asked his grown children what they remembered most fondly from their childhood. Was it the vacations they took together or the trips to Disney World or the zoo? No, they told him. It was when he would get on the floor and wrestle with the four of them. They would gang-tackle the “old man” and laugh until their sides hurt. That’s the way children think. The most meaningful activities within families are often those that focus on that which is spontaneous and personal.

This is why you can’t buy your way out of parenting responsibilities, though many have tried. Busy and exhausted mothers and fathers, especially those who are affluent, sometimes attempt to pay off their deprived kids with toys, cars, and expensive experiences. It rarely works. What boys and girls want most is time spent with their parents—building things in the garage or singing in the car or hiking to an old fishing pond. No toy, to be played with alone, can ever compete with the enjoyment of such moments. And those moments will be remembered for a lifetime.

Heaven’s Gate

You might remember the tragic account of the Heaven’s Gate cult, whose thirty-nine members committed suicide in 1997. Their expectation of boarding a spaceship left the American people shocked and puzzled.

What would cause so many seemingly healthy people to kill themselves in pursuit of a fantasy from outer space?

The cult might have been motivated unconsciously by the quest for significance and purpose that resides within the human spirit. To satisfy that search for meaning, each of us must answer numerous questions posed by life, including “Who am I?” “Why do I exist?” “Who created me?” and “Is there life after death?”

People who are unable to find satisfactory answers to these questions become sitting ducks for the con men of our time. They often chase after crazy notions cooked up by gurus and self-appointed saviors, who tell lies to those who need to believe.

Someone explained it this way: “Superstition is the worm that exudes from the grave of a dead faith.” In other words, when a person recognizes no god who can give meaning to life, there is a great void inside that aches to be filled. Frequently that individual will turn to hocus-pocus, magic, UFOs, and ancient myths to satisfy his or her deep longings. It would appear that the Heaven’s Gate cult succumbed to that false teaching.

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There is a lesson worth noting here for parents. We simply must give our children something in which to believe—not just something, but the only true source of Truth in the person of Jesus Christ. The failure to accomplish that quest for meaning can leave them vulnerable to bizarre cults. In regard to the Heaven’s Gate cult, it sent thirty-nine people to their deaths while trying to flag down a passing spaceship.

The Greatest Danger

I’m often asked what I perceive to be the greatest threat to families today. I could talk, in response, about alcoholism, drug abuse, infidelity, and the other common causes of divorce. But there is another curse that accounts for more family breakups than the others combined. It is the simple matter of over commitment and the tyranny of the urgent.

Husbands and wives who fill their lives with never-ending volumes of work are too exhausted to take walks together, to share their deeper feelings, to understand and meet each other’s needs. They’re even too worn out to have a meaningful sexual relationship, because fatigue is a destroyer of desire.

This breathless pace predominates in millions of households, leaving every member of the family frazzled and irritable. Husbands are moonlighting to bring home more money. Wives are on their own busy career track. Children are often ignored, and life goes speeding by in a deadly routine. Even some grandparents are too busy to keep the grandkids. I see this kind of over commitment as the quickest route to the destruction of the family. And there simply must be a better way.

Some friends of mine recently sold their house and moved into a smaller and less expensive place just so they could lower their payments and reduce the hours required in the workplace. That kind of downward mobility is almost unheard of today—it’s almost un-American. But when we reach the end of our lives and we look back on the things that mattered most, those precious relationships with people we love will rank at the top of the list.

If friends and family will be a treasure to us then, why not live like we believe it today? That may be the best advice I have ever given anyone— and the most difficult to implement.

Echo from Eternity

Vince Foster served as deputy counsel to U.S. president Bill Clinton until the night of July 20, 1993, when he allegedly committed suicide in a Washington DC park.

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Controversy has swirled around the circumstances of his death to this day.

Regardless of where you come down on that issue, I want to share something related to it that I think you’ll find interesting. Just eight weeks before his death, Foster was asked to speak to students graduating from the University of Arkansas School of Law. This is what he told the students on that occasion:

“A word about family. You have amply demonstrated that you are achievers willing to work hard, long hours and set aside your personal lives. But it reminds me of that observation that no one was ever heard to say on a deathbed: I wish I had spent more time at the office. Balance wisely your professional life and your family life. If you are fortunate to have children, your parents will warn you that your children will grow up and be gone before you know it. I can testify that it is true. God only allows us so many opportunities with our children to read a story, go fishing, play catch, and say our prayers together. Try not to miss a one of them.”

Vince Foster’s words now echo back to us from eternity. To paraphrase his message: While you’re climbing the ladder of success, don’t forget your own family.

Dad, I Never Really Knew You

Several months ago I talked to a man who described one of the most painful experiences of his life. When he was seventeen years old, he was one of the stars on his high school football team. But his father, a very successful man in the city, was always too busy to come see him play.

Quickly the final game of the season came around, which happened to have been the state championship. The boy was desperate to have his dad there. The night of the big game, he was on the field warming up when he looked into the stadium just in time to see his father arrive with two other men, each wearing a business suit. They stood talking together for a moment or two and then left. The man who told me this story is now fifty-eight years of age, and yet he had tears streaming down his cheeks as he relived that moment so long ago. It’s been forty years since that night, and yet the rejection and pain are as vivid as ever. I was struck again by the awesome influence a father has in the lives of his children. When he is uninvolved, when he doesn’t love or care for them, it creates a vacuum that reverberates for decades.

My friend’s father died not long ago, and as he stood by his dad’s body in the mortuary, he said, “Dad, I never really knew you. We could have shared so much love together— but you never had time for me.”

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“The Game of Life”

When my daughter, Danae, was a teenager, she came home one day and said, “Hey, Dad! There’s a great new game out. I think you’ll like it. It’s called Monopoly.” I just smiled.

We gathered the family together and set up the board. It didn’t take the kids long to figure out that old Dad had played this game before. I soon owned all the best properties, including Boardwalk and Park Place. I even had Baltic and Mediterranean. My kids were squirming, and I was loving every minute of it. About midnight I foreclosed on the last property and did a little victory dance.

My family wasn’t impressed. They went to bed and made me put the game away. As I began putting all of my money back in the box, a very empty feeling came over me. Everything that I had accumulated was gone. The excitement over riches was just an illusion. And then it occurred to me, Hey, this isn’t just the game of Monopoly that has caught my attention; this is the game of life. You sweat and strain to get ahead, but then one day, after a little chest pain or a wrong change of lanes on the freeway, the game ends. It all goes back in the box. You leave this world just as naked as the day you came into it.

I once saw a bumper sticker that proclaimed, “He who dies with the most toys wins.” That’s wrong. It should say, “He who dies with the most toys dies anyway.”

Fame

Society’s fascination with Hollywood and celebrities has gone a little crazy. Millions idolize those who have achieved fame and fortune, but stardom does not provide the satisfaction that it advertises.

Marilyn Monroe could have told us that. Consider the adoration and respect accorded to Muhammad Ali in his prime. He was known around the world as “the prizefighter who couldn’t be beaten.” His picture appeared on the cover of Sports Illustrated more times than any athlete in history. Wherever he went, the cameras followed. Today, though, it’s a different story.

Sportswriter Gary Smith spent some time with the ailing fighter at his home and asked to see his trophy room. Ali escorted him to a dark, damp barn beside his house. There, leaning against one wall was a board displaying mementos, photos from the “Thrilla in Manila,” pictures of Ali dancing and punching and hoisting championship belts over his head. But the pictures were smeared with white streaks. Pigeons had made their

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home in the rafters. Ali picked up the board and turned it around, face to the wall.

Then, as he started to leave, Smith heard him mumble, “I had the world, and it wasn’t nothin’. Look now.”

Fame is fleeting, even for those few who achieve it. If that is where you are searching for meaning, you are not likely to find it.

Bill and Frank

One of the most powerful stories in the history of the Olympic Games involved a canoeing specialist named Bill Havens. He was a shoo-in, I’m told, to win a gold medal in the 1924 Olympic Games in Paris.

But a few months before the Games were held, he learned that his wife would likely give birth to their first child while he was away. She told him that she could make it on her own, but this was a milestone Bill just didn’t want to miss. So he surprised everyone and stayed home. Bill greeted his infant son, Frank, into the world on August 1, 1924. Though he always wondered what might have been, he said he never regretted his decision.

Well, he poured his life into that little lad and shared with him a love for the rapids. Twenty-four years passed, and the Olympic Games were held in Helsinki, Finland. This time Frank Havens was chosen to compete in the canoeing event. The day after the competition, Bill received a telegram from his son that read: “Dear Dad, Thanks for waiting around for me to be born in 1924. I’m coming home with the gold medal that you should have won.” It was signed, “Your loving son, Frank.”

Many would question Bill Havens’ decision to miss his big opportunity in Paris, but he never wavered. He wanted his family to know that they always came first, no matter what. And that made him a hero to a little boy named Frank.

This material is excerpted from Dr. Dobson’s book Dr. Dobson’s Handbook of Family Advice (Copyright 1996/1998, Published by Harvest House Publishers) and is used with permission.

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