Quality or Quantity
Quality or quantity? Which is more important? If you're talking about money, then a pocketful of wrinkled old bills are more valuable than a few clean bills of the same denomination. If you are talking about time, then that is a question busy parents have debated for generations. Is spending quality time, though less in amount, more valuable than spending much time with their children? Leading pediatricians say they need both quality and quantity. Quality time is that personal, exclusive time together, when the child gets the parents' undivided attention. They stress that quantity of time is also important when children can “simply be around their parents, watch them in action, learn from their day-to-day example, and know they are an important part of their lives.”
Do we spend quality or quantity time with the Lord? As His children (and we are if we have accepted Jesus as our Savior), do we not also need both? We need that quality time, that personal, exclusive time when He gets all our attention (and we get His)! This means we are alone with Him – no distractions – just the two of us!
We also need quantity time with Him when we can simply be with Him, watch Him in action, and learn from His
Word, meditate on it - “turn it over in our mind.” Psalms 111:2 says, “How amazing are the deeds of the LORD! All who delight in Him should ponder them.” We can join the psalmist in meditating on His “unfailing love” (48:9), His “majestic, glorious splendor,” His “wonderful miracles,” and His “awe-inspiring deeds” (145:5-6). We can also be taught by Him. “I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go: I will counsel you and watch over you” (Psalm 32:8).
In our fast-paced life, we tend to be like Martha in Luke 10:42, “worried and upset about many things” (NIV), when we need to do as Mary did – sit at Jesus' feet, listening to what He taught. Jesus said, “Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her.” “Teach me your decrees, O LORD; I will keep them to the end. Give me understanding and I will obey Your instructions” (Psalm 119:33-34).
Quality or quantity? It is not a question of which; we need both.