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Not a Secondary Priority
This is one of those powerful verses that can speak to me in a different way every time I read it. The other day I was riding in the car with my father-in-law and someone had this reference on a sign in his yard. John took out his blackberry and looked it up but didn’t tell me what it was. Immediately when we got home I looked it up and of course it spoke to me again.
Sometimes this verse reminds me of the obvious: to be humble when I pray, or other times it reminds me to seek his face in prayer and others to get my life in order and quit sinning. This is what it was this time:
There are times in my life when I am so consumed with what I need to do to run my business and still have time for Megan and the boys that I put prayer as a secondary priority. I’ll wake up early and start planning my day as I get coffee going so that when the boys wake up I can maybe help get them ready for school and maybe try to beat some of the traffic before my phone starts ringing right as I arrive at the jobsite where the homeowner wants to know if I can make changes to their almost completed project that has to be completed today because my next two projects begin tomorrow like I promised those homeowners/friends/family members so that I can spend a few minutes with my accountant the next afternoon so I won’t be late on my taxes as I run to the bank to make a deposit to cover the checks I just wrote to my subcontractors…….
What I have to get done can easily get in the way of my time with God because it is important right now and there are deadlines to meet and commitments to keep. I don’t actually put God second in my mind, it is just that sometimes life gets in the way and I give it more attention.
This particular day as I read this verse I felt like I heard God say to me "quit taking yourself so seriously Frank, our time together is way more important that that stuff that is consuming your day and getting in the way of our relationship." I got the message that God not only wants me to be humble when I pray but to just be humble and pray. In other words, I need to quit giving my stuff more importance than I do my prayer life. Someone told me once that they had so much to do that day that they had to spend extra time praying just to be able to get it all done. Thanks God for putting that sign in that yard where I could see it.
Wow Frank. This really hit home. Sometimes I get so caught up in the circumstance that I forget who has control of them. All I have to do is go to Him in prayer and He’ll do the rest.
Hits home for me too. Thanks Frank.
Thanks Frank. This absolutely hit me where I am today. I had to stop, close my door, and spend some time with God before I could even continue my day…and amazingly not one more email arrived while I was focused on Him. He is with me even here at work as I go through “my” day. How easily I forget.
Hey, Frank. Now what do you do?…hehehe.
How well I relate to letting life get in the way with time with God. That’s just natural with me. Taking time and praying seems unnatural – all the reason why I must.
Frank – Good words. If I could be so bold to add that God is ever present in your life regardless of your awareness of Him or not? We are “programmed” to differentiate between the sacred and the secular but Jesus is Lord of all and as believers the line has to be drawn elsewhere (sin and faith). I am reminded that the sacrament is often in the present moment and not just during those times we “set aside” for God. I am all for the discipline’s of grace so don’t get me wrong and would encourage everyone to put the remote (or laptop/pc/mac) down and spend time in prayer or reading but your prayer life is not a seperate thing from your life. Yes! Humility is the posture we must take every day so the work of faith may bear fruit in our coming, going, banking and relationships. I use the words “help me” and “be my hands and mouth” alot more than my thelogical vocabulary…and I think that is where we should be and yes, it’s hard but good to hear Him say “stop taking yourself so seriously”!
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