How do you determine what is going to be a priority for you? Something interesting about that word, “Priority” is that it wasn’t used in the English language until about the 1400’s. It was singular for the next 500 or so years. It wasn’t until the 1940’s that people began using the plural form of the word. It wasn’t long after that, in 1960, that IBM coined the phrase “muti-tasking” to describe the capabilities of its latest computer.
From there, the business world has introduced and maintained the idea that priorities are a list of tasks that can happen in a sequential order or even at the same time. The problem with this is that by definition, a person can only have one priority. If the word means the most important thing, how can we have multiple most important things. Another way of thinking about it might be, if everything is important, then nothing is important.
As believers in Jesus Christ, we are challenged every day about important things. If we’re honest, sometimes the good things in life can get in the way of the best things that God has for us. So, deciding what will be the most important thing in our life affects all of our decisions and choices.
I love how Paul wrestled with explaining this to the church in Philippians 3. He said, “Brothers and sisters, I do not regard myself as having taken hold of it yet; but one thing I do: forgetting what lie behind and reaching forward to what lies ahead, 14 I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.”
Did you hear it? He said “This one thing I do …” This is not to say that he never did anything else. What he is saying is that the one priority in his life affects everything else. Jesus said it this way, “No one can serve two masters …” He makes it very clear that God will not share the throne of our lives.
So, you may ask, shouldn’t my family be a priority in my life. What about my job or the church? Well, of course each of these things and many others should have a place of importance in our lives, but only one can be the most important. And if that one thing is the pursuit of knowing Christ better every day, how will that affect the other important things in your life? I’ll let you answer that.
