Priorities

But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.

~ Matthew 6:33

Do you ever get to feeling like you have no control over your life? Day in and day out you are working someone else’s agenda. You daydream about what you wish you had time to do, but you never seem to get the chance. Join the hundreds of millions of westerners who have chosen this life. This is the game we bought into. It’s what I often refer to as the “hamster wheel the world has gotten us onto.”

Michele and I have often wanted to travel in our life. We get to once in a while, but with no regularity. Finances and our commitments to our children’s schedules, our church and employers and my spending habits have often frustrated these longings.

On the one hand, we can learn the discipline of being thankful for what we have. There is a joy in simplicity and allowing ourselves to gratefully receive the givenness of our life together. Still, we could also acknowledge that we allow the business of day to day commitments obscure our working toward priorities. If we want to go on a trip to Hawaii, we can set the date and plan on how we will save the money to pay for the trip. It may take a few years to reach that dream, but we won’t see it come to fruition unless we work toward that priority.

We find the same to be true in our marriage relationship. We get so busy with the day to day that we begin to sense that there’s a gap between us. We love each other, but our need for intimacy is not being met because, we haven’t made intimate conversation and time together a priority.

Michele uses an object lesson that is very effective in illustrating the importance of priorities. On a table she has two glass jars. One jar is filled about halfway with small dried beans. The other is filled with pin-pong balls. The small beans represent all the little stuff we have to get done, like trimming the bushes or changing the oil in the lawnmower. They are important, but are they major priorities in the grand scheme? The ping-pong balls represent the major priorities like family, job, school and friendships.

If you are like most people, you can’t get everything done. So after days and weeks of reacting to all the tugs on your time and talent, you have little left for pursuing what you really want out of life. Michele illustrates this by showing that when we deal with all the small stuff first (the beans), all the ping-pong balls will not fit into the jar with the beans.

But when we attend to the major priorities first (she loads an empty jar with the ping-pong balls), then all the small stuff falls into place (she pours the beans into the same jar with the ping-pong balls and amazingly they all fill the spaces in between the ping-pong balls.).

Jesus taught to make the kingdom of God our first priority, even above such necessities as food, drink and clothing. When we pursue God’s righteousness, all the other stuff finds its appropriate place in the scheme of things.

Your marriage is a gift from God. How are you making your relationship a major priority? Discuss what small stuff is getting in the way of you both working toward intimacy and affectionate care?