First Things First: Are They?

Priorities: everyone has them.

Family. Work. Friends. Money. Leisure. And oh yes, God. And somewhere in there ... me?  It's one thing to have priorities, another thing to put them in the right order - and a whole different ball of wax to be true to them.

It's really worth the extra time it takes to list them out and put them in order - not necessarily on paper, although if that helps, why not? 

Priorities wheel found at
Women on the Fence

However, the exercise doesn't end there. It's not enough for me to say that this or that is most important (or SHOULD be - I hate the word "should" ... just saying), A followed by B, C, D and E. It's useful to examine, for starters, how much time I spend on the things I say are priorities, and find out whether some things need to be adjusted in my daily schedule. 

There are core priorities that I'd call "anchors" - these aren't just a matter of how much time I spend on them, in the sense of compartments in my life that don't touch each other, but rather, how they affect my decisions in every facet of life. They consist of core relationships: with God, with myself, and the outflow of those things: principles, beliefs, and character. 

If those things are in place, a lot of the guesswork involved in figuring out how to spend my time or what I should do next ... just fades away.  

It's not a perfect world

Nevertheless, it isn't a perfect world. Things change. Unexpected events happen: money troubles creep in, relationships begin ... or end, someone important to me moves away, another friend just moves onto a different path, someone else's social or political agenda affects mine, and my carefully-laid foundations can get shaken. I get hurt. I doubt myself. I doubt God. I question my ability to know what He wants; I question His love and care for me. I am unsure about my place in the world.  I become suspicious of others' motives.

Life has a way of throwing tantrums: circumstances scream at me in such a way that the peripheral things - the things that don't matter so much, the urgent things - tend to take center stage for a while. I lose touch with - or flat-out deny - what I'm feeling. Or why. (Big mistake!)  Before I know it, the priorities have started to shift, and I'm not exactly sure what's happened. All I know is that I feel uncomfortable, as if something is not quite right. Stress builds; unhappiness niggles at me, tugs at my sleeve. I get fatigued. If I ignore that, the discontent grows stronger, and I feel like I'm dragging myself around. Everything becomes an effort - even things I enjoy doing. Little things people say or do to me become huge - even things they don't say or do. I begin to perceive that I'm being attacked or persecuted ... when in fact, no such thing is happening. (A colleague told me once, "It's not like these people are laying awake at night trying to figure out ways to deliberately ruin your day." That helped me get some perspective.) 

When I step back and look at what I've allowed to take the spotlight, that's when it makes sense. That's why it's crucial for me to not just do the mental exercise of setting priorities once; I need to do it on a regular basis to make sure that the things that need to be at the center of my life are actually staying there, or if they've been upstaged by things that could have waited their turn ... instead of slowly (yet just as rudely as if it happened quickly) bumping to the front of the line.

If I allow that to happen, my spiritual and mental unrest will have physical consequences eventually. My body will become unwell - and it will force me to "lie down in green pastures." I will get sick, that is. The physical symptoms of stress will come to the fore: headaches, stomach troubles, joint aches, even a lowering of the immune system so that I succumb to some sort of virus. On the flat of my back, a lot of priorities become so clear - and I begin to get them straight and live in gratitude again. 

There was a time when I had to be laid flat out in bed every time, in order for me to pay attention to what really mattered. I can't say that never happens now - just that it's not as often. I guess life has beaten me down enough times for me to be able to catch the warning signs more quickly than before. Or maybe I'm growing spiritually ... stranger things have happened!   ;)

Who knew?

What I do know is that since I gave my will and my life over to Him all over again (approximately March/April 2009), I've noticed a difference - albeit slow, but a difference nonetheless. 

 Perhaps He took me at my word.