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PROGRAM D-8193
Ruthless priorities: One writer defines it as those few things that you refuse to put at risk. What do you refuse to put at risk in your life? Hopefully, your ruthless priorities are focused on what matters for eternity.
Notice that ruthless priorities are those few things you refuse to put at risk. In other words, you can’t have tons of ruthless priorities; they need to be few. Instead of doing lots of things halfway, do a few things really, really well. In her book, Rise, Patty Azzarello says, “If you try to do a hundred things and spread your energy among them, you will never do as good a job at any one thing as will those who are applying two-thirds of their time and energy to just three things.”
She is writing about being successful in business by focusing on the few things that have a really big impact on the success of the business or the organization. This is good advice when you want to be successful in your job. She goes on to say, “I don’t want to imply that this is easy or obvious. The choices you need to make to support ruthless priorities are painful, but it’s more painful not to excel at anything because you try to do everything.” (p. 26)
This is something I’ve tried to tell myself and share with others many times: setting strong biblical priorities in your life and disciplining yourself to adhere to those priorities isn’t easy, but it’s so much easier than what you’re doing! Living life by God’s priorities surely takes dying to ourselves, but it is in that death that we find life—real, meaningful life, the abundant life Jesus says he came to give us.
The most important ruthless priority which I refuse to put at risk in my life is to get to know God better and better. Jesus said, “Now this is eternal life: that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent” (John 17:3). In comparison, nothing else holds a candle to this priority. Getting to know God takes a strong and disciplined commitment, but the results are eternal.