Prioritize the Lord
Ryan O’Neill
As we continue in this season of Lent, I’m trying my very best to analyze the priorities that I have and where they come from. I haven’t learned much in my 31 years here on this earth, but here’s something I have come to recognize:
Motives produce priorities. There is a direct correlation between the two. See, motives are the reason we act. Out of that motive our priorities are portrayed, and idols are created and given attention and thought. What are your desires? What are you living for? I guarantee that is the thing driving your priorities, so it is vital for us as Christians to come to a solid and firm conclusion of what is urging us forward. (Pro tip, it should be the Lord.)
Oftentimes the things we set as idols in our lives are not bad things, but that’s not the point. The point is “is good getting in the way of the best?” We wouldn’t say we necessarily idolize our phones, our activities, having the perfect home, or looking flawless in the morning, but so often these little things become the altars that we worship at.
We should lay everything that we esteem higher than the Lord at the foot of the heavenly altar; at the foot of the cross. Have the Lord take it. Psalm 55:22 says, “Cast your cares on the Lord and he will sustain you; he will never let the righteous be shaken.”
So what do we do? We pause.
It is when we pause, as the Lenten season asks us to do, and thoughtfully look at how we invite God into our lives, that our modern idols reveal themselves more and more. Jesus taught in Matthew that the greatest commandment was to “love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.”
Is that how we live? What does that look like for us?
Sometimes we need to replace “good” with “best.” We have a lot to do, I understand that, but we can get creative! We have so many resources. We take for granted that we have the words of Scripture at our fingertips. Whether in book, audio, or app, it is not difficult to get our hands on a copy of Scripture or a devotional. We can even see several different translations at once! Yet, how often we fail to pick up our Bibles or actually meditate on God’s Word. Many of us may try but find that we are merely checking off another item on our to-do list when we skim over a familiar passage a few times a week.
When has God’s Word challenged you to consider if you are loving Him with your whole being? I encourage you to take some time for a prayer of repentance for the ways in which God has been relegated to a lesser position on your list of priorities.
Psalm 139:23-24 says, “Search me, God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.”
Invite God to reveal any idols that are in your life. Seek God, earnestly asking him to reveal how to organize your life around God instead of trying to fit God into your life. Ask God to reveal the best things, and ask him to help us to say no to the things that are taking His place in our lives.