Priorities

When Jesus was asked what the most important commandment was He said, "To love the Lord with your whole heart, your whole mind and your whole soul."  He then said that the second commandment was to love your neighbor as yourself.   Too often in life we seem to get these commandments out of whack and fail to follow them because we put lesser important things first.  Sometimes we catch it ourselves.  Other times we need hit upside the head with a 2x4 to get it though our thick skulls that we have our priorities askew.

Obviously, the first thing we always need to do is to put God first in our lives.   It's not a guarantee that things will always be perfect but things certainly aren't going to go well for us if we fail to put God first.  After all, everything we have, everything we own, everything we are, is a gift from God.   It is only through His grace that we will put everything in order and keep ourselves on track.   If we don't put God first, it's all too easy to get off track and then start to get our other priorities mixed up.  

Our second priority should be to our family.  Catholic speaker, Justin Fatica, made a comment on The Catholic Guy Show (Sirius 159/XM 117) last Friday that really struck home with me.  He said that if you fail as a husband or you fail as a father than you fail at everything.   This struck home for me.  It was as if he was talking directly to me.  I'd gotten my priorities askew and had put other things ahead of taking care of Abby and the kids.   Justin's quote was a PING from God directed right at me.  Our family must always come first because they are your foundation here on Earth.   Jobs come and go and true friends will understand that family comes first.   But  if you screw up your family life then you really are lost.  

Too often our priorities get messed up for one simple reason.  We become too self absorbed.  I'm not saying you are necessarily selfish.  You may be doing selfless acts of charity and taking care of other people but if you aren't putting God first or you aren't taking care of your family then you are too absorbed into other things and need to step back.  Too often we are just plain selfish though.   We become so ingrained in hobbies or other things that are pleasurable to us that we forget those things that are most valuable.   We become so wrapped up in television shows, working out, fantasy football, or other addictions that we fail to focus solely on those things that we should always be focused on.

Think to yourself today, "am I truly putting God first.  Am I doing everything to I can to fulfill my spouses and my families needs?"  If you aren't you need to ask what are you putting in front of them and fix it.