Getting Our Priorities Straight

We will never think our way into better acting; we must act our way into better thinking.

How often do we hear someone say the words, “He needs to get his priorities straight!” Indeed, the people around us seem to have an endless supply of advice regarding getting our lives in order. Our boss thinks more work is the answer. Our teacher thinks extra credit is the way we should go. Our friends, family and ecclesia make known their expectations for us.

Often stretched to our limit, we can become resentful and even rebellious. Hurt by a lack of recognition and certain that we suffer from a lack of “me” time in our schedules, we resort to worldly activities to achieve satisfaction. Sometimes, our lives can feel like an unpleasant contest between burdensome obligations and guilty pleasures. What if there were a way to rebalance our lives so that we could feel contentment without resentment and guilt? Good news! There is a way, but it will involve humbling ourselves and following some advice.

As an honest man once said: “Feel free to take as much of my advice as you like…I’m not using any of it.” Sadly, this is often our approach to much of the advice we find in Scripture. We can recite the verses, but can we put them into practice? Sometimes we think all we have to do is read and study. We can be like career college students who take class after class but never graduate! We need to step out of our comfort zone and get a job! We will never think our way into better acting; we must act our way into better thinking. “Faith without works is dead.” (James 2:20). Let’s go to work.

Our plan to “get our priorities straight” will require only three simple steps: seek God, clean house, and serve others.

Step 1: Seek God. “Seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things will be added unto you” promises us that if we get to work on spiritual goals, our physical needs will take care of themselves (Matthew 6:33). If we simply do the next right thing today, we will not have to carry the heavy burdens of worry and regret. Jesus said, “Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.” (v. 34). To seek God, we must live in the present. We cannot pine for a sugar-coated past or a hypothetical future where we “finally get what we want.” Yesterday is history, tomorrow a mystery; but today is a gift, which is why we call it the present. Each morning is like a new life, and each night we experience symbolic death. “This is the day which the LORD has made…we will rejoice and be glad in it.” Once we apply ourselves to being present, we can become aware of God’s presence. If there is one thing our world hates to see, it is us spending time alone with God! Our hand-held idols offer a steady supply of images that speak, drawing our attention away from God’s presence. To seek God, we must take back the present! The only way to do this is through action.

We must form daily habits. Prayer and meditation must be a prominent part of today, if today is all there is. The Lord’s prayer says, “Give us this day…” Yesterday’s prayers to do God’s will do not help us do God’s will today. The day needs to start with a prayer. If you can’t remember to pray, try storing your purse or wallet under the couch or bed. When you get down on your knees tomorrow to retrieve it, say a quick prayer. Simply say, “Please God, show me your will for me today…and give me the strength to do your will today.” God will work with whatever we bring to the table, but we must show Him we are willing. Willingness is the key that opens the door a crack to let God into our day. Ironically, this morning prayer is a demonstration of your willpower used appropriately. In this respect, kneeling when we pray is a good idea since it shows God our intention. Kneeling also reinforces the adage of acting our way into better thinking. God moves mountains, but we must show up with a shovel in hand!

Today needs to end with an intentional demonstration of gratitude through prayer. Prayer must not be complicated, but it must happen daily. At night, just a quick, “Thank you for (a list of things you are grateful for)” will suffice. It is not the quantity or even the quality of our prayers that matters so much as our willingness to do the action. Sometimes a prayer might be: “Father, I give up! I can’t do this anymore! You will have to take this burden!” If we humble ourselves like children who helplessly bring our parent a ball of knots, our Father will respond. But we have to demonstrate the willingness to do it through action. Once again, kneeling at bedtime is recommended because it shows humility and increases our likelihood of succeeding at forming a habit.

Similar to prayer, meditation needs to become a routine. There is no use asking God what His will for us is if we do not set aside time to listen for spiritual intuition. Meditation need not be complicated. It might be as simple as getting up a few minutes early to drink coffee alone in silence. Or we can sit in our car in the parking lot before work. We could walk out to our backyard and listen. Once again, quality and quantity are not the goals. A beginning is all we are after. Face it: the world wants to own every minute of your life and be your god. Setting quiet times alone with God is critical to our spiritual survival. Many people will say, “I can’t meditate (be alone with nothing but God).” If you can’t be alone with Him for five minutes today, how will you manage sharing eternity with Him?

Meditation will include the daily Bible Readings. As it has been said, “Praying is talking to God; meditation is paying attention to His answer.” Hearing God’s word is the best way to tune in to God! As time passes, prayers will become a constant, automatic tool for crucial times in our day. As we begin to realize meditation is the very definition of “me time” (spent with God), our days will slow down and become like miniature lifetimes because we are present for them! We will eventually realize the truth of Ecclesiastes 3:11, “He has put eternity into man’s mind.” (RSV)

Step 2: Clean House. Once we are willing to seek God, we need to take action. Our next step is to “clean house” or change our behavior. While some may think this happened on the day we left the old man in the baptism tub, we must realize our “walk” is a long journey. Here, we find a focus on humility is helpful. Humility means knowing our place as weak, mortal, sinful creatures with no hope apart from God. Conversely, it means realizing our potential to become something far greater than we are today. Calling our lives a spiritual “walk” implies taking small but intentional steps in some definite direction. On a walk, we should be able to look behind us and see our progress. If we cannot, we should consider returning to the basics outlined in step one of this article.

Clearing up our past trespasses will go a long way in putting some distance between us and the old man of sin. We often focus our energy on hiding our sins rather than confessing them. We carry the ongoing weights of bitter resentment and justified indignation around us when we could simply dump them out. To clean house, we start with a list of things to rid ourselves of. With whom are we angry? Why? What are we ashamed of? Why? What are we afraid of? Why?

Once again, we are allowed to flex our will during this step. We must be willing to admit why we are the way we are. While it is undoubtedly true that self (ego), selfishness, self-seeking, and self-centeredness are the main obstacles to our spiritual walk, it is also true that we will not make progress without an honest and consistent examination of ourselves. The help of a good friend, spouse, or counselor is invaluable during our confession and soul-searching. Admitting our faults and accepting criticism from others will be challenging but rewarding. A true friend may encourage you with the knowledge that you aren’t as special as you thought. We are all suffering from the common afflictions of pride and fear. Pride prevents us from seeking God. Fear demonstrates our lack of trust in God. Once again, the answer to our dilemma is willingness and prayer. The bad news about cleaning house is that it is endless and may seem insurmountable. The good news is that God will do most of the work—if we ask Him!

Step 3: Serve Others. Once we are present, in two-way contact with God, and making noticeable progress in cleaning up our faults, we must pass on this good news to others. There is a saying, “No one can save everyone, but everyone can save someone.” While serving others in small ways can begin today, we must resist the urge to immerse ourselves in this step without doing step 2. We cannot give away something we do not have. No one wants what we have to offer if our behavior displays pride, irritability or discontent.

All the commandments in Scripture are there for our own good, and serving others is no exception. It allows us to “get out of our heads” and concentrate on something else. It reminds us that others struggle as much as we do. It provides opportunities for fellowship as we work with others toward a common goal. As with the other steps, quantity and quality of service do not matter as much as just doing it! Today! We cannot use the excuse: “I wanted to do it perfectly (and couldn’t), so I never did it at all.”

Sometimes, service can be so enjoyable that we use it as an excuse to dodge our family responsibilities. We must not forget to order our service according to our relationships: God, our spouse, our family, and then our ecclesial family. We should not rob from our family to give to the ecclesia. Overall, we must not allow “service” to be reduced to an outlet for our ego.

Our 3-step plan to get our priorities straight is simple but never easy. The realization that we have very little power should lead us to seek God (who has all power), align our will with His and ask His help in cleaning up our act. This will involve intentional, routine acts such as prayer, meditation, confession, introspection and righting our wrongs. From there, we can share our experience by testifying about how He has worked in our lives.

Joel Wilkinson,
Ann Arbor Ecclesia, MI