Seek Him First This Year

It has been quite a while since our last post. Much has happened since then. I’ve had so many ideas for blog posts but never found the time to type them out. One of the things impacting me most about this new year has been my time and how much of it is spent on focusing on God. New Years comes and we make our resolutions. Odds are that they don’t even make it past the first week much less February. I thought about mine over and over. Priority on family. Pay down debt. Get in shape. You know – the usual. But again, days pass and we get tied up in the ‘routine of life’ and those resolutions get broken. I kept coming back to this one point. Put God first. I thought about Luke 12:31. Seek God first and everything else will basically follow. This is not “get close to God in order to get blessings”. It’s about God being what matters.

In this past year I have seen that. Build and better your relationship with God and life falls into place. It’s not that you do that in order for life to fall into place. This is the result of simply drawing closer to our Father. And with that comes our time and our priorities. I try hard to reexamine mine constantly. And it is a battle. We look at our schedules. Between work, school, kids’ sports events, etc. when do we have time for anything else? But look at our week. We have 168 hours in a week. Some spend 40 plus working. If we sleep 6 hours a day that is 42 hours of sleep. The other half is us constantly being on the go. And somewhere in there we throw in a 2 hour average of time at church. And then we return to our busy schedules doing other things. If that 2 hours is all we give God we give him 1% of our week. That is 99% of our week devoted to something besides God.

Looking deeper into this, how much focus and priority do we give to God? Are we making Him known in our lives? Do others in that daily routine see God in us? I am not a betting man but I am willing to say that our friends and neighbors know who our favorite sports team is, our favorite TV show is, or who we are politically supportive of. We sure will don the colors of our favorite college and drive hours to tailgate and then file in to watch that team bring in the W. We will stand in line for hours to get the tickets to the new hottest movie or singer coming to town. We will go all over the state waving signs in support of our favorite political candidate. Point is to compare just how much a priority these things are in our lives compared to the couple of hours on Sunday and maybe a 30 second prayer each night before bed. How intense are we for God compared to being intense for other things? Do we go around wearing a shirt with a Bible verse cheering at the top of our lungs “Yeah Jesus!” Well, you get my point. Is it obvious for ourselves that God is priority in our lives? Is it obvious for others who look at us to see God as a priority? Ask someone what they think is the top three things in your life that rule your daily routine.

This is my resolution this year. Seek God first. Make him top priority in my life. Nothing else matters. But this will not be easy. Satan will make sure your path is obstructed. He has the tools he needs to distract us. Jobs, bills, home repair, events for the kids, etc. are all means to distract. TV, music, internet, and gadgets are as well. Pray, fast, and get in the Word. We can do all things through Christ who strengthens us.