Father, help us to choose the right priorities, ones that will please you.
Last week we looked at motivation – that prompts us to get better at something and how we aim to improve. But this week we'll look at the direction we need to go in.
In life there's so much that can take up our time and effort. We need to make sure we're spending our time in something worthwhile. I attended a management development seminar a while back and no phrase that stuck in my mind was 'ant killing'. Basically it means spending time doing something that may have a minor significance, but doesn't help the overall cause in any significant way.
I'm not sure where the phrase came from (and it's probably frowned upon in these days of environmental awareness) but we need to make sure that what we are doing is effective. To achieve this goal we need to first decide what is important and what isn't. To do this we use priorities.
Again and example from another training course; in my previous job, I used to have to be a registered first aider, and one of the fundamental goals is to help people to stay alive in case of emergency.
There was a very specific way to prioritise;
This was known as the 3 'P's. In certain situation we can't achieve an instant 'get well soon' situation. One example I was given in my First Aid assessment was a person with a broken jaw. Now the requirements for that are to prevent the jaw from moving too much which will cause pain and the broken bone may also cut living tissue so the bandage is simply to hold the jaw in a closed position. No problem, we've covered points 2 & 3 above, but the examiner then said 'the person is about to be sick'. Looking at the priorities list above we can't continue to keep the bandage in place or the person can't breath, so in order to achieve priority one we need to forgo priorities 2 & 3 (until the situation is over then we can start again) and concentrate on priority 1.
In our spiritual life we also have the same 3 'P's. Our aim is to preserve life, our life and those around us. Anything which might make life seem easier and more enjoyable, yet hinder us in our first priority has to go. Jesus spoke a few parables that emphasize that point, probably the most obvious is that of the parable of the sower.
Things might seem good, but if it doesn't bear fruit on God's behalf then it is a failure. Those who feel away because of cares and worries obviously did so because they wanted a better life now, instead of looking forward to the goal ahead.