Prioritizing My Life

Name what you think should be your first 5 pri­or­i­ties in life. Then order those pri­or­i­ties the way they actu­ally are at present in your own life. Do they match up? Why or why not? If needed, what is one thing that you can do today that will help your two lists match up?

Cali­for­nia is expected to set a new record this year, but it is not one to boast about: By the end of 2008, it is antic­i­pated that more than one mil­lion fore­clo­sures of per­sonal res­i­dences will have been com­pleted in this cal­en­dar year.  Food prices con­tinue to rise, in part due to the cost of fuel.

A cou­ple of days ago, I filled up my vehicle’s tank. As I sat there watch­ing the num­bers on the gas pump spin upward, I shook my head in amaze­ment at the fact that I felt for­tu­nate to find reg­u­lar fuel at $4.15 per gal­lon.  When I got to work, I told a col­league, “There’s some­thing wrong with this world when I just paid $4.15 for a gal­lon of gas and feel like I got a bar­gain.”  He shook his head emphat­i­cally, while con­grat­u­lat­ing me.  “Where?” he asked eagerly.  “I just paid $4.23 and thought that was the low­est price available.”

Job losses con­tinue, as dis­cre­tionary income and con­sumer spend­ing on nonessen­tial items plum­met.  Amer­i­can wage earn­ers are learn­ing that they really can live with­out designer cof­fee, given that it now costs about the same as a gal­lon of gas.  The pur­chase of a new and improved com­puter, high def­i­n­i­tion tele­vi­sion, cell phone, vehi­cle or other cov­eted item must be deferred when the adjustable mort­gage yields an increased monthly pay­ment while the mar­ket value of the fam­ily home reaches a new record low.

“You’ll find all your every­day human con­cerns will be met.”

When I first read the Inter­net Café Chat ques­tion, I instantly recalled “I am Third.” That was the title cho­sen by Gale Say­ers for his auto­bi­og­ra­phy.  The NFL run­ning back made his­tory for his prowess on the foot­ball field, as well as the fact that he and his room­mate, the late Brian Pic­colo, were the first African-American and Cau­casian play­ers to room together at the height of the 1960’s Civil Rights Move­ment.  “I Am Third” was also a ground-breaking tele­vi­sion movie in 1971, reti­tled “Brian’s Song,” that made James Caan and Billy Dee Williams stars.

“I am Third” comes from Matthew 22:37–40:

Jesus said, “‘Love the Lord your God with all your pas­sion and prayer and intel­li­gence.’ This is the most impor­tant, the first on any list. But there is a sec­ond to set along­side it: ‘Love oth­ers as well as you love your­self.’ These two com­mands are pegs; every­thing in God’s Law and the Prophets hangs from them.”

Our rela­tion­ship with the Divine Cre­ator should take pri­or­ity over all else in our lives, fol­lowed by our devo­tion to other peo­ple, and, finally, our own needs and desires.

Summed up, we are to be peo­ple of faith, first and fore­most, who are self­lessly will­ing to put oth­ers’ needs ahead of our own self-interest.  It’s a stan­dard by which no one can con­sis­tently live.

The irony is, of course, that as it becomes more dif­fi­cult to meet the basic demands of daily liv­ing, we increas­ingly focus upon the mun­dane, but essen­tial details of life.  Yet that is pre­cisely when we should turn our energy toward increas­ing our faith, trust­ing that we will have every­thing we need.

“Has any­one by fuss­ing in front of the mir­ror ever got­ten taller by so much as an inch? All this time and money wasted on fash­ion — do you think it makes that much dif­fer­ence? Instead of look­ing at the fash­ions, walk out into the fields and look at the wild­flow­ers. They never primp or shop, but have you ever seen color and design quite like it? The ten best-dressed men and women in the coun­try look shabby along­side them.

If God gives such atten­tion to the appear­ance of wild­flow­ers — most of which are never even seen — don’t you think he’ll attend to you, take pride in you, do his best for you? What I’m try­ing to do here is to get you to relax, to not be so pre­oc­cu­pied with get­ting, so you can respond to God’s giv­ing. Peo­ple who don’t know God and the way he works fuss over these things, but you know both God and how he works. Steep your life in God-reality, God-initiative, God-provisions. Don’t worry about miss­ing out. You’ll find all your every­day human con­cerns will be met.

Give your entire atten­tion to what God is doing right now, and don’t get worked up about what may or may not hap­pen tomor­row. God will help you deal with what­ever hard things come up when the time comes.”

Matthew 28:27–34
The Message

All of our “every­day human con­cerns will be met.” Dur­ing dif­fi­cult times, our faith is tested:  We are com­manded to keep, through faith, that sim­ple, declar­a­tive promise at the fore­front of our con­scious­ness.  Eas­ier said than done when the bank’s col­lec­tion depart­ment calls to inquire why the monthly mort­gage pay­ment has not been received; you are noti­fied that, within just a few days or weeks, your job will no longer exist; the health insur­ance com­pany sends you a let­ter declin­ing cov­er­age for nec­es­sary care; or you real­ize that you after you buy food for your fam­ily and put gas in the car, there is not enough money left over to pay the elec­tric bill.

Still, we have to believe that “this too shall pass” as we strug­gle to pro­vide tan­gi­ble neces­si­ties for our fam­ily, and rally to sup­port our friends and neigh­bors who face sim­i­lar challenges.

On most days, it is lit­er­ally impos­si­ble to dis­cern between the first two pri­or­i­ties — faith and oth­ers’ needs — as they are so inter­twined and inter­re­lated.  It is, of course, an act of faith and obe­di­ence to care for those around us.  And we do so in response to the fact that we are, in turn, lov­ingly cared for and lifted up.  Chris­tians under­stand that fam­ily and friends are gifts entrusted to us for safekeeping.

But what of our own needs? Again, we are called upon to believe that we will have what we need.  How­ever, needs and desires are very dif­fer­ent con­cepts.  So we may not have every­thing we want.  And we may not receive what we need when we believe we need it. But we will ulti­mately be sup­plied with every­thing that is nec­es­sary to sus­tain us and our faith chal­lenge is to live as though we believe that even in those moments when we doubt it.

The “I am Third” phi­los­o­phy can be reartic­u­lated as a list of five priorities:

1. Rela­tion­ship with the Divine Creator;
2. Needs of imme­di­ate family;
3. Needs of extended fam­ily and friends;
4. Needs of the com­mu­nity; and
5. Per­sonal needs and desires.

My life, like every other Christian’s, reflects an ongo­ing desire and strug­gle for bal­ance.  Like all other Amer­i­cans, eco­nomic con­di­tions have impacted me, espe­cially when it comes to my abil­ity to pay for basic neces­si­ties like food, util­i­ties, fuel to power my vehi­cle so that I can get to work.  There is less money left over at the end of the month to be spent on nonessen­tial items.  The pur­chase of any­thing that is not needed, but is merely desired, is cur­rently deferred.  These days, I drive by the cof­fee store on more morn­ings than I pull into the park­ing lot.  This year, we are plan­ning a “stay­ca­tion,” rather than a vaca­tion because the costs of trans­porta­tion, hotels, and food are pro­hib­i­tive.  I wish I could claim that altru­ism has forced me to focus more upon the needs of my fam­ily, but the truth is that eco­nomic real­i­ties require me to do so.  I must assure that they have what they need before sat­is­fy­ing my own desires.

“This too shall pass.”  One of the ben­e­fits of aging is the attain­ment of per­spec­tive.  I remem­ber the oil embar­goes of the 1970’s.  I vividly remem­ber park­ing my car at the gas sta­tion owned by a friend overnight so that I would be first in line in the morn­ing when the sup­ply truck got there in order to have enough fuel to get to work for another week.  I recall prior hous­ing mar­ket crises from which Cal­i­for­nia even­tu­ally rebounded — and will again. I have sev­eral friends who have, over time, been laid off jobs they thought they would hold for many addi­tional years — and have nar­rowly escaped a cou­ple of lay-offs myself — and not only secured bet­ter jobs, but now look back upon those forced career changes as blessings.

Part of that per­spec­tive is the abil­ity to for­give myself for those inevitable times when my pri­or­i­ties lack bal­ance and sym­me­try.  I know my own short­com­ings and appre­ci­ate that if I make a bad deci­sion, am short-sighted in my analy­sis of a par­tic­u­lar sit­u­a­tion, or fail to fully com­pre­hend the scope of a loved one’s needs, I will try harder next time to make the right choice, approach the sit­u­a­tion from a dif­fer­ent angle, or lis­ten more care­fully. There is no need to chas­tise myself or live in a state of regret about the mis­takes I make because the Divine Cre­ator for­gives me, wipes the slate clean, and pro­vides me with new oppor­tu­ni­ties each day to “get it right.”

Most of all, I pri­or­i­tize my life by re-reading my all-time favorite Bible verse each and every day — or mul­ti­ply times dur­ing a par­tic­u­larly stress­ful day.  It brings me peace and con­firms that my life has pur­pose, momen­tum, and, ulti­mately, hope:

“For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to pros­per you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” (Jere­miah 29:11)

Click here to access the list of all par­tic­i­pants and read their thoughts.

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