Priorities

Perhaps some of you will remember me, I used to write here occasionally. Something God the Holy Spirit has been ministering to me lately is the word Priority. Webster defines this as: "something given or meriting attention before competing alternatives". We have many competing alternatives in our lives today.

An illustration from a friend of a friend. Once a high level Loans officer took a vacation to the Hawaiian Islands. He went to the local restaraunt and ordered fish where he was promptly instructed to go to the beach and find a fisherman to catch whatever he wanted because that's how fresh their food was. The Loan Officer does this and of course it is the best fish he's ever tasted. Long story short he visits this restaraunt several times and gets into a conversation with the fisherman. He asks the fisherman if he ever thought of "expanding" his business. The fisherman says no, why? He says, 'I could get you a loan to get 3 more boats and a small crew'. Fisherman says ''Then what?' He says ' then you could expand more even have several chains across the usa canada and europe. Fisherman says ''Then what?' He says then eventually you could retire as head and ceo of this big corporation and do basically whatever you want, you could just fish up and down the shore as often or not as you want. the fisherman says, 'how's that different from what I do now?'

Often times we confuse priorities with "pressing" matters. Recently this year I decided God was my priority. I quit my full time job to start my own business. this was so i could please God in my Marriage, Parenthood, Service to Him and the Church, and all around less stressed with "pressing" matters. So I removed them from my life. This initially of course caused some friction and "waves" in all these arenas, but now I am so much more focused on my relationship with God, my wife, my daughter, the Church, my work, my health, etc...

Think about what God could entrust you with if He only had your undivided attention... Jonathan Edwards who wrote sinners in the hands of an angry God, who started the 2nd Great Awakening in the US spent 8-13 hours a day in prayer and study of God's Word. Wow!!!! Take that in for just a minute.

Challenge: so today pray and ask God what is your priority, and if it lines up with His priority for you.