Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 14:28 — 19.9MB)
Did you make any New Year’s resolutions at the beginning of the year? It’s May now and I wonder if you did make any resolutions, do you even remember them? And if you remember them, did you keep them?
I wouldn’t want to know how many resolutions I’ve made that just petered out after awhile. I really meant to keep them; I started off with a strong commitment and a big push, but somehow the passion just faded with time. You too?
Recently a friend gave me a book by a business woman named Patty Azzarello. The book is called Rise, and she says it gives three practical steps for advancing your career, standing out as a leader, and liking your life. Well, that’s a pretty tall order for a book to deliver, but even though it’s not written from a biblical perspective, some of her thoughts are helpful. So, today I want to talk about Ruthless Priorities, which she defines as overachieving where it counts.
Years ago God taught me that I can’t do everything; I can’t even do everything I’m capable of doing or would like to do. I have to make choices and those choices determine whether what I do counts in the Kingdom or not. Truly, in order to do God’s will, we need ruthless priorities; priorities that are clearly established in our minds and to which we ruthlessly hold. Otherwise, we will be pulled in a hundred different directions, and accomplish very little that truly counts for eternity. Without some ruthless priorities in our lives, we’ll continue to make sincere resolutions that don’t last very long!
One of the chapters in this book is entitled “Be Less Busy,” which doesn’t sound like the way to advance your career, does it? But truthfully, we have to begin by getting rid of our preconceived idea that busyness means productivity. When I first began my career years ago, I noticed that many people in the company worked very long hours and took great pride in it. They seemed to think that putting in lots of extra hours meant they were demonstrating a higher commitment to the job; they were doing a better job than the rest of us. Patty says in her book, “Many people feel that if they are not fully consumed with work and always appearing to be super busy, people will question their commitment and their value.” (p.15)
I truly believe in working hard, but equally important is working smart. Getting great results with less work is the sign of a very smart person. As Patty puts it, “Just because you can work tirelessly doesn’t mean you should.” (p.17)
Do you have a ruthless priority for your life that you will slow down; that you will truly “be still and know that God is God”? There’s an African proverb that says, “Hurry, hurry has no blessing,” and truly it doesn’t. Slowing down so we have time to know God has to be our highest priority, and when it is, you’ll get more done in less time, and you won’t be so frayed around the edges.
I certainly agree that we should overachieve in some areas; we should go extra miles and do more than we have to do. But are we overachieving where it counts?
Maybe, like me, you have a “to do” list that you use to make sure you do what you need to do. But perhaps we need a “not to do” list as well, to remind us that we cannot be all things to all people, we are not super-people, God has not called us to burn out, and therefore some things will have to be left undone if we have ruthless priorities.
The dictionary says that ruthless means without pity or compassion; merciless; heartless. Well, we certainly don’t want to be ruthless people, but we need to establish ruthless priorities for our lives. That means that we are merciless about saying no to the truly unimportant things which clamor for our time and attention. We are determined not to be sidetracked by the tyranny of the urgent which keeps us from overachieving where it counts.
Think of it this way: What do you want to be said about you after you’re gone? What do you want to be remembered for? Years ago I realized that people thought of me as very busy and getting a lot done, and for many years that was my identity. I loved it when people said things like, “I don’t know how you do all you do.” Then God showed me how prideful that was, and I thought, I don’t want my legacy to be that I was a really busy person who got lots done.
I certainly don’t want to be lazy and waste time, but my ruthless priority has changed. I want to be known as a person who does what she does from love—love of God and love for people. Otherwise, as we read in 1 Corinthians 13, all my hard work and accomplishments count for nothing.
So, I repeat the question: What are the ruthless priorities of your life? Hopefully they are focused on what matters for eternity.
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. That 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, and that is, 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.
I’ve discovered that one of the enemy’s most effective ways to defeat me is to make me remember what I should forget and forget what I should remember. So, if I don’t consistently remind myself of the ruthless priorities of my life, they will start to fade from my memory and pretty soon they’re on the back burner. We have to consistently recommit ourselves to what the main thing is, and then work to make sure the main thing is the main thing.
As followers of Jesus Christ, the main thing for us should be to love God with all our heart, soul and mind and to love others as we love ourselves. Jesus gave us this ruthless priority, so it’s not optional for us. So, what are you doing to love God more and love others like you love yourself? It won’t just happen. I was thinking and praying about this and asking God to help me love him more completely—with all my heart. It’s the main thing for all of us believers, but if you don’t make the main thing the main thing, you’ll forget and something else will crawl up on the throne of your heart before you know it.
Since Jesus told us to love God with all our heart, that means it’s possible to love God but not with all our heart—half-heartedly, if you will. Well, how do we learn to love God with all our heart so that this is the ruthless priority of our lives?
The Psalmist prayed, “Search me, O God, and know my heart.” That’s a prayer we all need to pray, asking God to reveal any part of our heart that doesn’t love him.
For example, God may reveal to you a part of your heart that is filled with bitterness, perhaps because of wrongs done to you. And as yet you’ve never confessed that bitterness; you haven’t been willing to let go of it and trust that God will take care of those who have wronged you.
Maybe there’s a part of your heart that is filled with pride and you have never confessed that pride as sin and humbled yourself before God. With pride in your heart, you can’t love God with all your heart.
Is there a place in your heart that is filled with jealousy and envy? Do you secretly feel as though God has short-changed you and you deserve better than you have? That’s a part of your heart that doesn’t love God.
You know, when you look at it this way, you realize that loving God with all your heart is not a matter of intensity—how fervently and passionately you love God—but rather how unreservedly and unrestrictedly you love God. Does God have every part of your heart or are there places you’ve not yet relinquished to him? God is not asking us to try to work up some more intense feelings toward him, but rather to give him every part of our heart. That should be the ruthless priority of our lives—the one thing we will not put at risk.
Another ruthless priority which should be true of all Christ-followers is to do what God has given us to do with all our hearts, with excellence and with joyful spirits. This is one distinguishing characteristic that should permeate our lives, and when we go into our work worlds with that kind of attitude, we become ambassadors for Christ, simply by the integrity of our lives and our commitment to do really good work.
I know when you’re in a job that isn’t exactly your dream job, shall we say, it’s easy to let things go and just do enough to get by. But if one of your ruthless priorities is that you will do your work to the very best of your ability, with a positive attitude, no matter what, then you don’t allow the circumstances of your job—or your life—cause you to lose that focus, that ruthless priority.
So, I just want to encourage you today to think about the ruthless priorities of your life. Do you have any, and are they the right ones?