Tag: getting our priorities straight

Make the Right Choice

On By Judy GlasserIn MarchLeave a comment

Time is the great leveler – we all have 24 hours in a day.  You and I choose how we’re going to spend these 24 hours.  What are we going to do?  How are we spending the majority of our time?  Using a Biblical term, I would say that you and I are ‘serving’ whatever or whomever takes up the most of each of our 24 hours.

A lot of us serve ourselves.  Looking out for #1.  Do I like it?  Does it benefit me?  Do I wanna do it?  Do I feel like doing it?  What’s in for me?  Oh, yeah.  These questions come pretty easy because we use them a lot.  We may not say them out loud but we use them in our decision-making.

Many of serve our debts.  We have to work extra hours or extra jobs to pay for all of the stuff we already have.  We’re upside down on cars and houses.  When we’re not working, we’re worrying about paying the bills.  The best wisdom about our money I’ve ever heard is – “The secret in managing your money correctly is not in how much you make.  The secret is in how much you spend.”  Truth.

Some of us serve our hobbies –  like sports or exercising or shopping.  While we’re shopping today we’re planning about the next time we can go shopping.  Or we’re not happy unless we’re biking or walking or running or working out.  Or before the game we’re watching on TV is over, we’re flipping to the next channel for the next game and then the next game and then the next.

We all choose who or what we will serve.

Joshua makes this very clear to the Israelites as he throws down a challenge.  “Choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve… But as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord.” Joshua 24:15.

You and I need to make a conscious choice, not just roll through our lives spending our precious time on things that have no eternal value.  We don’t want to get to the end of our lives with hearts full of regrets and emptiness, realizing we never made a choice – we just let the world push us to a place we never wanted to be.  Or maybe we get there and realize looking in the rear view mirror that we made a lot of choices – but they were the wrong ones.

I have made my choice and I know to the bottom of my soul that it’s the right one.  I have laid down any ‘idols’ I was serving at the feet of the One, True, Living God and now it’s all about him.

How about you?  If you have any doubts about the choices you have made in how to spend your short dash between birth and death here on earth, there is no better time than right now to start a new chapter in your life labelled, “The most important thing in my life: my love relationship with my Father God”.  Notice I didn’t say anything about religion.  Religion to me means all the manmade traditions and rules.  That’s not what I’m about.

Make a decision today to put God first in your life.  You won’t regret it.

I choose you, Abba Father.

The Struggle

On By Judy GlasserIn JanuaryLeave a comment

“Is not all of human life a struggle?”

Job tells it like it is.  I agree with him – do you?

Looking back, my childhood seems relatively struggle-free but I know that there were things I didn’t like and situations that were hard for me to deal with.

In my memories, it seemed like Jr. High was the worst time for relationship struggles.  Those years were strange and tough.

And then I got a taste of the adult struggles in High School as I started making plans for what my life would look like after graduation.

Life got more and more complicated after that.  Being a wife and a mother of two with a career was the epitome of the struggle.  It was a challenge just to get through each day.  I’m grateful to God for guiding me through that time, straightening out  my priorities and helping me focus on the important things.

Transitioning into the empty nest was a tough struggle for my husband and I.   Every day we missed the fun and craziness of having a house full of active teenagers.  Our priorities had to shift again.  One very positive thing is that we were able to give God more time and space in our lives.

Now that we are retired, the struggle is different but very real.  Priorities shift once again and there are still challenges.  The picture we had for our future exploded when our son was killed.  The hole his death has left in our lives is big and painful.  Rebuilding our plans for a future without him is extremely hard.

Job was right on – this whole life on earth is a struggle.

Thank you, Abba Father, for guiding me through the struggles.

Attacking the Mountains

On By Judy GlasserIn AugustLeave a comment

Ezekiel prophesied that God was going to ‘bring a sword’ against the mountains.  God was planning to destroy the high places where the Israelites worshipped other gods.  He was going to smash the altars they used when they made sacrifices to their pagan gods.  Their idols would be demolished – everything would be wiped out.

God had clearly told the Israelites many times through several prophets to get rid of their idols and take down the high places once and for all.  They hadn’t done it so God was now going to let the Babylonians do it for them.

God was attacking the mountains because they wouldn’t.

How does this relate to my life?

Is there anything that God has told me to get rid of in my life that I haven’t done?  Has God been telling me to change any of my priorities?  Are there places or people or things that I care about more than I care about God?  Because – whatever they are – those would be my idols.  That would be my high place.

There was a time in my life when God pointed out an idol I had – it was my career.  In the middle of a Women’s Bible study, he whispered into my ear that I was on the wrong path.

Honestly, my first reaction was anger.  How could I possibly be on the wrong path?  My family and I went to church regularly, I was in the church choir and volunteered in many different areas at church.  I was a good person who worked hard.  How could this possibly be the wrong path?

But – in my heart – I knew exactly what God was saying.  My career goals had become too important to me and my priorities needed to change.  I didn’t stay angry very long because the truth was very evident in my life when I took some time to think it through.

I am very grateful that God identified that issue for me so many years ago because I changed my thinking and adjusted my priorities which put me on the right path – next to my Father God.  I still had a great career from which I recently retired but it no longer was more important to me than God was in my life.

As I read God’s message in Ezekiel, I can imagine that, if I had not responded to his whisper, God would have eventually ‘attacked’ my career in order to get my attention and motivate me to change.  I”m glad it never got to that point.

I need to listen closely to God’s whispers.

So do you.  Has he whispered anything to you lately?

Please open our ears, Abba Father.