Key Bible Verse: Repeat them again and again to your children. Talk about them when you are at home (Deuteronomy 6:7). Bonus Reading: Deuteronomy 6:4–9

I was to speak at a banquet on a Friday night. As I pulled in the driveway, the headlights fell on my son Bob's bicycle. For days it had been standing in the carport, its rear tire flat as a pancake. I'd promised to fix it, and had a plane to catch early the next morning. So I called Bob, and we patched that tire.

Then I washed up, grabbed a fresh shirt and tie, and tore across town. I was 20 minutes late, and the emcee had ulcers. "Where in the world have you been?" he asked.

"I'm awfully sorry," I said. "I had to fix a flat."

"I thought you had a new car!" he replied.

"Oh, I do. It was my boy's bike that had the flat."

That man lost it! After he gave me a piece of his mind about wasting the dinner crowd's time, I responded, "Did it ever occur to you that it may be far more important for me to fix my boy's bicycle tire than to eat your meal?"

Not long after, Bob and I were out in the park, playing ball together and throwing stones in the creek.

"Hey, Bob," I asked, "do you love me?"

"I sure do, Dad."

"Great! How come?"

"Because you play ball with me and fix my bike tire!"

My Response: Where would my kids say I place them on my priority list?

Thought to Apply: What a father says to his children is not heard by the world, but it will be heard by posterity. —Jean Paul Eixhter (writer)