Priorities

When time gets tight and we are working against the clock there is always something that gets put on the back burner or worse, completely forgotten about. There is only so much time we have in a day and when time gets tight only the things that are really important to us stay a priority. The things that we don’t prioritize get left behind. Let’s be honest for a second, we all have said this at some point, “I will spend more time with God once the holidays end… once I finish this big project at work… once I get a little more free time…” It seems harmless at the time but once we take priority off of our time with God it becomes more and more difficult to get back on track. We fall out of the routine of spending time with God and it becomes easier to focus on other things and we begin to feel like it is not as important.

We know that it is important to have God as the first and foremost in our lives but sometimes that feels like a burden. With everything, we have on our plate another scoop of Jesus just seems too much. It’s okay if you feel this way, we are only human and we have emotions. What is not okay is when we allow our busy schedules to have more priority than our time with God. We use our limited time as an excuse and don’t make an effort to connect to God. We go to church on Sunday but don’t pick up the Bible during the week. When we are faced with hard times we run to alcohol or another vice instead of God.

If we look at Joshua 1:8 we see that we are supposed to be dedicating every waking moment to the Word of the Lord. “This book of the law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it; for then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have success.” According to this verse, we should be spending all of our time reading, studying, and meditating on God’s word. That sounds like a tall order, but If we look deeper at what this scripture really means we can see that it does encourage us to study the Bible when we can but when we cannot, we should be thinking about its meaning and putting it into practice what we have learned from it in our everyday lives.

God knows all, so He knows that we cannot spend 24 hours a day reading and studying His word. We have some basic needs that draw our attention away from constantly studying the Bible. Things such as feeding our families, spending time with a friend or family, working to provide a home, making time to rest, etc. Although none of those things are directly connected to studying God’s word, they can still be honoring to the Lord when doing in the right way. God isn’t telling us that we need to quit our job, stop spending time with friends and family in order to spend more time with Him. He is simply asking you to involve Him in those parts of your lives. From the small thing to the big things, God wanted to be a part of it. Colossians 3:23 says, “Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the LORD, not for human masters,”. Anything we do can be turned into an act of worship if we are doing it with a joyful and gracious heart. When we do our work joyfully we bring attention to God’s goodness and grace.

I challenge you to take a look at what you are placing priority on in your life and if it is not on God then consider realigning your focus. Whatever free time you have, give it to God and allow Him to fill your life with Him. If you only have 15 minutes a week give it to Him. If you have an hour, even better! Just give God what you have and allow Him to multiply it. Will you trust God with your time and make Him a priority?