Part I
All of us are aware of the need to be better time managers, to be better organized, to get more done in less time, etc., etc. And certainly those are worthwhile goals and efforts on our part. However, for the most part those activities don’t address a more strategic question, and that is, are we prioritizing our lives? Do we have a plan to keep us on track with our long-term goals and objectives?
I’m sure that many of you use a to-do list, a calendar or some electronic way to list and prioritize your activities for the day. I do, and I would be at a loss without it because I have such a poor memory that many things would drop between the cracks, if you know what I mean! So, these planning tools are helpful. But what they actually help us to do is to prioritize our activities.
We look at what we have to do for the day or the week, put them on a list, decide when we’ll do them, in what order, and try to check everything off before the day or week is over! That is prioritizing our activities, but it does not get to the issue of prioritizing our lives.
Others of would have to admit that you never seem to be in control of your day, rather it controls you. Activities seem to descend upon you harum-scarum, and somehow you muddle through your days and weeks just trying to keep your head above water. Now, you may find yourself in that predicament because you don’t exercise daily discipline to organize your activities, or because you don’t know how to do that. Either way, the result is the same: You’re disorganized and your activities are poorly prioritized.
But whether you’re good or adequate at organizing your activities or not, the bigger question we’re tackling today is “Are you good at prioritizing your life?”, not your day, not your activities.
Stephen Covey, author of The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, puts it well. He says, “The key is not to prioritize what’s on your schedule, but to schedule your priorities.” Let me repeat that, because you need to hear it: “The key is not to prioritize what’s on your schedule, but to schedule your priorities.”
I want to talk about priorities—not time management, not how to do a better job with the eight hours you work each day. But far more significantly: Do you have the right priorities for your life and are you accomplishing them? That needs to be addressed even before you tackle the challenge of organizing your activities for the day or week.
Jesus Knew How to Set His Life’s Priorities.
Jesus reached the end of a short three year ministry and said to the Father, “I have brought you glory on earth by completing the work you gave me to do” (John 17:4). He had no regrets, nothing left undone. Jesus had set his life’s priorities in line with the Father’s will, and so he accomplished all that God wanted him to do.
Now, Jesus didn’t heal everyone that was sick or convert everyone to be his disciple. But he did what the Father gave him to do. He knew his priorities and he stuck with them. We need to learn from the Master how to prioritize our lives so that we can look back on our days, and eventually on our lives, and say, “I did what you gave me to do, Father.”
One of the things I taught in my customer service seminars was that you should never say, “It’s not my job.” Makes you angry when someone says that, right? But one day I was reading from Luke chapter 12, and I discovered that Jesus actually told someone “It’s not my job.” Here is that passage:
Someone in the crowd said to him, “Teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me.” Jesus replied, “Man, who appointed me a judge or an arbiter between you?” (Luke 12:13-14)
The man asked Jesus to be a judge, and Jesus said “It’s not my job.” He didn’t use those exact words, but that’s the message he gave this man who was asking him to settle an argument between him and his brother.
I can imagine this man figured Jesus was the right person to do this. But Jesus told him that he was not called, nor did he intend to try to become an earthly judge in human affairs. I’m sure Jesus was not unkind about it, but he certainly was direct. Jesus kept a single focus; he was committed to his life’s priorities, so there were times when he disappointed some people during his ministry here on earth.
Throughout that short three-year ministry, Jesus reiterated over and over again that his life’s priority was to do the Father’s will. In John 6, we read “For I have come down from heaven not to do my will but to do the will of him who sent me” (John 6:38). That is what you can call a priority for life, not just for the day’s activities.
Of course, having his life’s priority clearly defined, that governed his daily activities and helped him make decisions about each individual day’s activities. For example in Mark 1 we find the story of the time when Jesus got up early in the morning while it was still dark and went off to a solitary place to pray. The disciples went looking for him and when they found him, they exclaimed:
“Everyone is looking for you!” Jesus replied, “Let us go somewhere else – to the nearby villages – so I can preach there also. That is why I have come.”
His disciples wanted him to stay in the town where they were, because “everyone was looking for him.” But Jesus knew that his duty that day was to go to the nearby villages. “That is why I have come,” Jesus said. He knew his life’s priority, and that determined the day’s destination.
So, when we get the bigger picture and strive to establish for ourselves exactly what our life’s priorities are, that should have a major impact on our everyday activities, because we can stay focused on the higher priority to which our daily activities should contribute.
What can we learn from Jesus about setting our life’s priorities?
Here are some principles we can learn from Jesus about setting our life’s priorities:
1. As disciples of Jesus Christ, our life’s priorities should be totally in line with God’s will.
Our highest ambition should be to do exactly what God wants us to do. If anything else is more important to us than knowing and doing God’s will and fulfilling his purpose for our lives, we will end up in a disaster.
2. Making the choice to do God’s will inevitably means we will have to say “no” to other choices.
We have to face up to the reality that for many of us saying no to anyone is very difficult. That’s because our worth as a person is too much based on what others think of us. When we are dependent on the opinions and affirmation of other people in order to feel good about ourselves and what we’re doing, then we are at their mercy. We’re going to be jumping through their hoops, trying to be what we think they want us to be, in order to gain their approval and therefore feel we’re okay. In that mode you can easily get your life’s priorities very confused.
3. In doing the Father’s will, you will sometimes disappoint people.
Sometimes we have to be impervious to what other people think, because when choosing your life’s priorities by God’s will for your life, there are likely to be some people who will try to convince you to take another path. And when you disappoint them because you don’t follow their advice or guidance, they will rarely be understanding and compassionate about your decision.
4. Having the right priorities doesn’t mean you do everything that could be done or even everything that you might want to do.
I see many of us who are trying to wear too many hats, indeed trying to do what only God can do. Learning to do what God tells you to do and let the rest go is one of the major lessons in prioritizing your life. And some of the things you have to let go may indeed be good things—very good things, but not in God’s will for your life.
I have a degree in music and in my younger years, I spent a great deal of time involved in church music—directing, singing, playing, etc. When God got hold of my life over 30 years ago and I came back into his will for my life, I expected him to direct me into some type of music ministry. But those doors began to shut and instead he has guided me into this radio ministry, and from that, a writing and speaking ministry which keeps me very busy.
As a result, I’m no longer involved in church music, and there are times when I miss it greatly. It’s hard to keep from joining in when the choir sings; I want to get up there and play those hand bells again. But God has other people better qualified for those jobs and he has me in a different path now. So, I have to say no to the music, which is a good thing, a very good thing. But it is not God’s best for me now in my life.
How do we set our life’s priorities?
Well, if we agree that we need to have lifetime priorities that set the direction for our lives, and we see from Jesus some important principles to keep in mind as we set those priorities, I think the next logical question is, how do we know what our life’s priorities should be?
Keep these things in mind:
1. God’s will is not a mystery; he is not playing hide and seek with you. He wants you to know his will more than you want to know it. So, you can be assured that he is willing, ready, and able to reveal his will to you if you truly want to know what it is.
2. God’s will is most clearly revealed in his Word. You will never have assurance of God’s will for your life until and unless you are immersed in the Word of God, studying it, reading it, meditating upon it, memorizing it, and making it the bread of your life. I can assure you that God is not going to write on your walls or burn your bushes or send you a cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night. The reason is we don’t need things like that any longer because we are blessed to have the Word of God, readily available for us to know God’s will.
3. We have to unclutter our lives with anything that is keeping us from giving attention to and doing God’s will.
Doing God’s will is a matter of relinquishing our will to his and giving him permission to call the shots for our lives. And it requires letting go of a lot of “stuff” in our lives.