Quantity Time vs. Quality Time

I have heard people who have said, “I can’t spend much quantity time with [my spouse or my children], so I make sure I spend quality time with them.” Unfortunately, that doesn’t work – it doesn’t work with our family and it doesn’t work in our relationship with our Father.

Psalm 91 begins with, “The one who lives under the protection of the Most High dwells in the shadow of the Almighty.” (HCSB). I think it speaks of the difference between quantity time and quality time. It also speaks of the necessity of quantity time in order to have quantity time.

Two days ago, our family went to Six Flags Over Texas. The weather forecast was calling for some rain, but we went anyway, since days with forecasts like that are normally the best days to go to Six Flags. After we had walked about 100 yards from the car, my wife asked me if I had looked at the markers so we would know where we parked. Knowing that I hadn’t, I joked that we had parked in the last row of cars between a blue car and a red car (Mercy Seat confession: I lied).

The first part of the day we rode a few roller coasters and had a great time. About 2:00, we sat down to eat a pretzel where my teenaged daughter was frightened by a very flirty Wiley Coyote (he snuck up behind her while the rest of us silently watched his plot unfold).

We went through Casa Magnetica (a house built on an angle so your eyes play tricks on your mind – water flows up hill, bottles roll across a “level” tabletop). We thought a few raindrops fell on the canopy, but we were OK – we had a couple of umbrellas in my wife’s bag. No problem!

While we were standing in line for the old timey cars, we called my father-in-law (our family’s personal weather spotter) who told us to get to shelter ASAP – bad weather was about to hit the Park. That was no real surprise to me – my background in Scouting and sailing told me that we were about to get a downpour. We saw a few raindrops fall until just before we got in the cars. Within 10 seconds of driving off, I opened an umbrella and huddled over my 10 year old son as he drove in the rain. My wife did the same for our daughter in the car behind us. No problem!

Well, about 5 minutes later, the bottom dropped out and we lingered in the glass shop for about 30 minutes and watched very wet people running through the flooded street and cross the flooded bridge. No problem!

The rain began to lighten up so we went for a ride in the carousel. We spoke with a friend, a police officer in the Park, as we opened our umbrellas since it was sprinkling again. I asked him if he used one and he joked, “No – umbrellas are just lightning rods.” No problem – or so we thought.

Because of the first wave of rain, the handholds on the parking lot’s trolley slippery; my wife grabbed one of the umbrellas and headed to the guard shack as the trolley whisked away the kids and me. The trolley’s roof was useless – horizontal rain pelted us as the three of us huddled beside the pocket-sized umbrella. The trolley stopped and everybody exited. We were nowhere close to where I knew the car was. As we sprinted across the lot (still huddled beside the umbrella), my daughter cried out that she was going to die of hypothermia and that she was getting hailed on (there was no hail – just a cold Drama Queen!). I spotted the car (see, I knew where it was – besides, all the smart people had already left the Park, and there was only one other car that far away from the front gate), and we huddled beside it while I fumbled for the keys (safely secured inside a ziplock bag, inside my zipped fanny-pack). We were safe. No problem!

Except my wife was about a half a mile behind us! Had she caught the next trolley? Had she stayed at the guard shack? I reached for my cell phone and prepared to call her – then I realized that my daughter had Amy’s phone in the back seat!

Our children shivered as I drove against the light traffic toward the guard shack. I was right – my very smart (and very dry) wife had stayed inside the (very dry) guard shack. As she hopped in the car, she looked at us and laughed. We were soaked to the bone – the only time I had been wetter was at the first Metroplex Promise Keepers rally in 1994; if you were there, you know how wet we were that day!

The rest of us were able to laugh after only a few more minutes. I think we could all agree that it was one of the best days we have ever had.

So why did I spend so much time recounting my story? To point out quantity time vs. quality time. Our family had spent quantity time together so we were able to reap quality time. Did you catch that?

Quality time can’t be spent – it can only be reaped.

The same is true of our Father. It is only by spending quantity time with Him (in the Word, in prayer, and in obedience), that we are able to reap quality time with Him.

How’s your time with your Father? Are you spending quantity time and reaping quality time, or are you just trying to spend quality time with Him? How about your time with your family?

Growing in grace and knowledge,

Craig Beaman

craig@psalm34-8.com