Bible Text: John 4:34 | Speaker: Darlene Sala | Series: Encouraging Words | Someone has called busyness “the sin that no one criticizes.” In fact, we usually think of a busy person as being ambitious and—well, important. We think of busyness as the opposite of laziness. And since none of us wants to be thought lazy, we’re quite willing to be busier than we probably ought to be.

So how do you decide whether or not you’re too busy? How do you set priorities?

Most of us grew up thinking that Christian priorities should be:
Jesus first,
Others second,
and then You last.
In fact, we sang a little chorus that went,
“Jesus and Others and You—what a wonderful way to spell JOY.”

But I don’t believe that is truly biblical. If I understand scripture correctly, our priorities should all be on a horizontal line with God over all. Take a piece of paper and put God at the top. Under that, draw a straight line all the way across the paper on which you put all your responsibilities, including family times and recreation. All of these items are important. It’s a matter of deciding what God wants you to be doing at any given point in your day.

He wants to be involved in every part of your life. If you put God merely “first” in your life, when you have your quiet time with Him in the morning, you’ll check Him off for the day. If you put God only at the center of your life, He will have little impact on the periphery. But if you put Him over all of your life, you will find yourself checking with Him to see if you are doing what’s best with each moment of your day. Jesus said, “My food…is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work” (John 4:34).

If God has spoken to you today about priorities, take a definite step in obedience. It’s the best thing you can do with this moment in time.