Priorities

I know I've been slacking with writing posts lately. I feel like I have abandoned my poor wittle blog in the past two and a half months. :( In all honesty, school has been crazy busy so far this semester, and I unfortunately have not had a lot of extra time for fun stuff, like my blog!

But anyway, on to the real post... :)

Speaking of not having a lot of free time, I have been thinking a lot about priorities lately. A couple weeks ago, I taught a lesson to my awesome middle school Sunday School class about priorities and perspective, and it really got me thinking about the priorities I have in my own life. 

The main question that came to my mind was this: "Claire, is your relationship with Jesus Christ the number one priority in your life every single day?" And you know what, if I was truly honest with myself, the answer would be no. It breaks my heart to say that, and I know it breaks my Savior's heart even more. Yes, Jesus is my number one priority some days, but if I said He was number every single day, I wouldn't be telling the truth. 

As a college student, I allow my schooling to take number one priority in my life a lot of times. Now, is doing well in school a bad thing? Of course not. But when I allow that to take the number one slot over Jesus Christ, this is when it can become a problem. 

I know many of us struggle with keeping our priorities straight each day. We love God and we thank Him for blessing us, but if we were honest, how often do we allow other things to slip into our time with Him and our devotion to His Kingdom? Whether it's our jobs, our schoolwork, our significant others, our social lives, etc., we all have a choice in how we order our priorities. 

We have overflowing schedules, sleepless nights, distractions, deadlines, etc. etc. etc. Many times, our heart is willing, but the daily.tangible.life stuff seems to take over before we even know what hits us.

Do you know what the definition of "priority" is? It's really simple and we all probably know what it is, but when I looked up the exact definition, it again hit home with me. Priority is defined as "something that is regarded as more important than another." Now, is school or work or our social lives more important than God? Well, of course not. It's easy to say God is more important than these things, but how often in the hustle and bustle of life do we truly remember where He should fall on our priority list?

For me, I've had a really eye-opening few weeks about priorities, and I intend on turning my priority list upside down right now. But how exactly do we make God our number one priority each day? First, we have to understand how to to determine what our priorities are. It's actually pretty simple.

We can tell what our priorities are by the following:

1. How we spend our time.

2. What we spend our money on.

3. Who we hang out with. 

I think this list really sums it up well. Most of us probably spend about 8-10 hours at school or work. Well, you gotta do those things, right? Then, we probably spend 3-4+ hours either watching TV, listening to music, browsing the internet, getting on social media, etc. Throw in about 6-7 hours sleeping and a few hours spent with family/friends, and we've already exceeded the 24 hour day limit. Are these things bad in and of themselves? No way, Hosea. It's how we choose to prioritize them that's important. 

As I begin my journey to adapting my priority list, I'd like to share a few key points that I think will help us out along life's way.

How to Start Making Jesus Our Priority:

1. Start your day off with Him.

I'm not a morning person BY ANY MEANS, but I've started to do my devotion in the mornings and it has really helped get my thoughts on the right track for the day. When we start our day with Jesus as our number one thought, we can't help but have a good mindset for the day ahead. 

"Seek the Kingdom of God above all else, and live righteously, and He will give you everything you need." Matthew 6:33

2. Continually stay in His Word.

Just like we make a choice to commit to other things in our day, consistent Bible reading is never going to happen unless we make a choice to schedule it into our lives. This may mean literally setting an alarm on your phone to remind you, and that is totally okay! 

"All Scripture is inspired by God and is useful to teach us what is true and to make us realize what is wrong in our lives. It corrects us when we are wrong and teaches us to do what is right. God uses it to prepare and equip His people to do every good work." 2 Timothy 3:16-17

3. Pray without ceasing. 

His Word literally tells us this in 1 Thessalonians 5:17. Prayer is our connection line with God through Christ. It is all about our relationship with God. We need to be both consistent and persistent in our prayer life.

"Pray in the Spirit at all times and on every occasion. Stay alert and be persistent in your prayers for all believers everywhere." Ephesians 6:18

4. Remember you have a choice.

A lot of times we feel we don't have a choice for how we spend the majority of our day. But if we look closely, we will realize we have SO much time that we devote to things that don't really matter. To set our priority on Christ, we have to make the choice to do so. It will never come naturally until we choose to make Him our number one every single day. 

"He must become greater and greater, and I must become less and less." John 3:30

"Think about things of Heaven, not the things of earth. For you died to this life, and your real life is hidden with Christ in God. And when Christ, who is your life, is revealed to the whole world, you will share in all His glory." Colossians 3:2-4

I encourage you, my friend, to join me in striving to make Jesus our number one priority in this life. He deserves nothing less than our absolute everything, and by making Him our number one, the rest of our priorities will fall exactly into place. 

Love & Blessings, 

Claire

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