The Top 5 Priorities
As I sought the Lord faithfully, each day, He brought things into my mind and soul to wrestle with. Discovering His priorities for my life was a treasure that helped me phenomenally – to sift the wheat from the chaff in my day to day. This was a lengthy process for me. I was a slow learner. I hope to help you “get it” faster and sooner than I did. Before I explain this life changing (for me) revelation, I think I should give you a picture of this time of my life.
Having moved onto our farm a year before, and homeschooling our two sons, my husband and I felt The Lord leading us to foster care. We had a big house, a lot of space, and time with us both being home based. Our sons were on the same page. Shortly after, we found ourselves with a 3 year old and 1 year old. Two precious, broken, little boys. We adored them. But it is, quite honestly, no walk in the park expanding your family so quickly and children who have experienced trauma require a different style of parenting. All my resources were soon being stretched. Trying to homeschool, clean, cook, shop and help my husband on the farm started to take its toll. Then we hit financial challenges. The farm did not perform as well as we expected and we needed extra income. I had a stressed but imaginative husband, who invested in a state of the art harvester and began harvesting on a contract basis for other farms. This quickly became a lucrative venture, but kept my husband working on other farms from 4 in the morning until 9 at night. All of a sudden, out of shear necessity, I was juggling everything on my own. This meant waking earlier and earlier, going to bed later and later. I had to spend long hours sorting our crop, and take care of our children. Consequently, I relied more and more on our older sons, and was soon feeling very guilty for the burden I was placing on them. I worked harder and harder, convinced I could really be “superwoman”, but I was seriously failing. Homeschooling was happening more and more unsupervised, the house was getting dustier and the floor was in serious need of attention. I was snapping at the children, and was sourfaced and serious. Anger built against my husband and I snapped at him and treated him disrespectfully whenever he did have time at home. I felt like a complete failure. Nothing was ever finished. I wasn’t doing anything well, and the things I had prided myself on before – my patience, cleanliness, organisation, and peacefulness were distant mists in the far edges of my mind. I had lost my joy.
Each of us uniquely created with differing capacities and purposes:
Reading this, you may wonder why, with only one school going child, and no farm to run, you are feeling overwhelmed. Perhaps your life is far simpler than the picture I’ve painted here. Or far more complex.
God has made us each so differently, and what overwhelms one of us, may not overwhelm another.
WATCH OUT!!
Be very careful at this point, not to judge yourself, or another. It is important to embrace the uniqueness of who we are as individuals, with God created purpose and design. We are custom made. So if you get overwhelmed easily, rest easy. That is no reflection on you. Merely a reflection of how God created you. Hopefully no matter what it takes to overwhelm each of us as individuals, help and practical steps will be found here.
It was in this desperate, frantic, depressed (I only realised later) state of mind that I met faithfully with the Lord each morning. See Overcome Overwhelm – The first Step, if you haven’t read that post. Out of that time emerged His prompting for me to set PRIORITIES. My priorities were what had driven me everyday for the last few months: Make breakfast, put on washing, get school started etc. But that had got me into this miserable state.
This time it had to be The Lord’s priorities. What did He see as important for me to do with my day?
Well, I didn’t think washing mattered that much to God. I didn’t remember that being a “thing” in the Bible. It probably didn’t matter much if the house was dusty, or if a gourmet meal was served. So I set out to discover…and there are many clues in scripture to show me what DID really matter to The Lord:
1. The Lord
“In all your ways, acknowledge Him, and He shall direct your paths”
Prov 3:6 (NKJV)
“Set your mind on things above, not earthly things”
Colossians 3:2
You shall have no other gods before me”
Exodus 20:3
All my own lists of things “To Do” were “gods” before Him. If I wanted to know what to do in the day, for Him to direct my paths, I needed to acknowledge Him first. Ticking off the to do list must surely qualify as “earthly things”. His Word made it clear. The first thing I needed to do each day was seek Him. All good – I had started doing that. However, I now knew to be sure to put my day before Him, and seek His will for it. Every fork in the road during the day, every decision, every reaction, needed to be passed before Him first. I had found the biggest challenges to be when I had a long and detailed list in my mind, of all the things I was going to accomplish in the day, and in the first 5 minutes those plans were derailed. This lack of control really upset me. We do need to have an idea of what we would like to accomplish in a day, but this needs to be held LOOSELY in our hand. The Lord can reshuffle and reorganise..even INTERRUPT. Because His plan is always best! And surrendering to it gives us peace! This was something that required practice – a training of my mind. But every day, and at every point in my day, The Lord must come first.
2. My Husband
“Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.”
Genesis 2:24(ESV)
After God, my husband is my second priority. We are one flesh. The Lord’s advice for wives is prolific through His Word, and we will go into this in more detail in future posts. But I can make certain, each day that I am treating him with kindness and respect. Not necessarily because I want to, or “feel like it”…but out of obedience to The Lord.
3. My Children
“Behold, children are a heritage from the LORD, the fruit of the womb a reward”
Psalm 127:3 (ESV)
“He gives the barren woman a home, making her the joyous mother of children. Praise the LORD”
Psalm 113:9 (ESV)
Not only do our children require our constant attention – they often demand it! And make no mistake, this is arguably the most important calling in our lives. But these sweet, needy, sometimes demanding children come in third place. And that’s difficult for some of us to process. Yes – our husband ranks higher. And though we will discuss this much more in upcoming posts, it is important to remember that God’s order is ALWAYS best! By obeying His priorities, our children will be blessed! His ways are not our ways. It can be counter intuitive, but we MUST determine to trust that He knows best.
Being a good mother means: taking time for your children, giving them countless moments of undivided attention, affirming touch, an encouraging smile, teaching them as they live life alongside you and modelling Christ’s love and grace to them. It also means expecting them to entertain themselves for periods of time while you tend to your responsibilities. Being a good mother does not mean giving your children your undivided attention ALL the time. This would be a disservice to them, and hinder their independent play and learning. But a loving, kind and consistent manner with our children shows them and God, that they are a priority to you.
4. Housekeeping
“Make it your goal to live a quiet life, minding your own business and working with your hands, just as we instructed you before.”
1 Thessalonians 4:11 (NLT)
“She carefully watches over everything in her household and suffers nothing from laziness”
Proverbs 31:27 (NLT)
God has made us to be productive. We have a responsibility to see that our family has nourishing and tasty food to eat, clean clothes and a healthy environment in which to live. We should endeavour to do the best we can, but only after ensuring that, within each moment, our top 3 priorities are not being shirked. This does not mean that we need to entertain our children all day because they hold a higher rank than housekeeping, and never have “time” to clean or tidy. That would not be good mothering, it would be spoiling. But when cleaning, with our children alongside us, we can ask ourselves: Is my attitude reflecting that being a good mother comes above housekeeping? Am I teaching and chatting and enjoying the less than perfect help as I go about my chores? Or am I becoming irritable and frustrated?
Our attitudes reflect our priorities.
5.Church and friends
“And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds, not giving up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another – and all the more as you see the Day approaching.”
Hebrews 10:24-25
Going to church each week, and a woman’s Bible Study (preferably with mums who have children the same age, so they can play together as you study) should be a non negotiable for your family, except for unforeseen rare circumstances. Meeting with fellow believers is essential, and I advocate for women to have a close circle of friends. Women are made for friendship, and we will cover this in more detail in future posts. However, church commitments and gathering socially can not take priority over any of the more important priorities (1-4). It is important to assess if we can manage extra responsibilities or meetings before we commit. A weak family unit cannot pour out and bless others. We must keep our focus on strengthening our family unit first, and then reaching out, and contributing to our brothers and sisters in Christ.
But How?
How do we implement these 5 priorities? I can’t divide my day up and attend to each one in order…that is not the way of a mother’s life. Typically, everything is happening all at the same time. Our husband is talking to us, the children are trying to show us something, the dinner needs to be cooked, and a friend is texting. It is in this kind of scenario that priorities come to the rescue:
- An arrow prayer to God “Help, I’m losing my mind!”
- Tell the children to stop and wait because you are listening to Dad. Pay full attention to your husband. Make eye contact. If you lose concentration (yes – it happens to me too) ask him to repeat the last bit. Show interest, ask questions, and if necessary, ask if you can continue the conversation once the children are in bed.
- Now pay attention to the children and the once you have seen what they want to show you, tell them they need to sit quietly, or help while you prepare dinner.
- Make dinner with a cheerful disposition
- Attend to the friend’s text once everything else has been done or leave it till the next morning.
Another scenario could be helping your child with school work or homework while washing dishes in the kitchen. They are not understanding, or playing around, and you feel yourself becoming irritated and raising your voice impatiently:
- Arrow prayer to God, “Help – I want to please you in this!”
- Think: child more important than dishes. Stop and sit with your child. Give them your full attention, or if you feel too irritated, ask them to have a break while you finish what you are doing,(pray) and then give them your full, patient attention.
Hopefully this gives you the picture of how having God’s priorities helps you through the day. And at the end of the day you can evaluate:
Did I get the toilets cleaned? No
But did I put God, my Husband and children first? Yes? Well then that’s a successful day. Try for toilets tomorrow. This might take a few months to perfect, but God’s mercies begin afresh each day. Keep a record for yourself so you can see when you are improving.
When we are showing love to our family we start to experience success and less guilt, and that sets us on a positive trajectory.
According to Steven R. Covey’s “The Seven Habits of Highly Effective Families”,https://www.amazon.com.au/Habits-Highly-Effective-Families-Beautiful-ebook/dp/B00L73JQ0O Habit 3 is “Put First Things First”. He uses the analogy of filling a jar with rocks. When we put the big rocks in first, all the little extra things of life will fit in easily around them. When our main priorities are in place, it will surprise you how much you begin to accomplish. It’s a sure path to joy and fulfilment of all God has created you to be!
God says it like this:
“But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.”
Matthew 6:33 (KJV)
