You’ve likely heard this hundreds of times. “Get your priorities straight.” or, “What are your top priorities? The word priority from the Latin word prioritas came on the scene in the 1400’s. Prioritas means; first in rank, order, or dignity. There can only be one first thing – one priority. Even the word “top priority” is a redundant term. Prior to 1800 you rarely saw the plural form of the word. In fact, the use of the word priorities was nearly nonexistent until the 1940’s.

I’m all about goals and objectives and agree with the need to “prioritize” various areas of life. I’ve even written a post that encourages you to schedule your priorities instead of prioritizing your schedule. However, you don’t want to be like the company president who met with his executive team and said here are our top 20 priorities.  

Priority is linked to purpose. If you don’t know your purpose, you will wander aimlessly through life. You could say your purpose is your priority. Life rotates around purpose not a paycheck or possessions. It rotates around relationships, not real estate holdings. Life rotates around worship, not work.

As followers of Jesus, we have one priority with two components. Jesus says “But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness and all these things shall be added to you. When a scribe asked Jesus, “What commandment is the foremost of all?” In other words, What’s my priority and purpose in life? Jesus answered, “The foremost is, Hear, O Israel; The Lord our God is one Lord; And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength. The second is this, You shall love your neighbor as yourself. There is no other commandment greater than these.

Well, there you have it, the answer to life’s most important question that every human being ever born asks and wants to know, “Why am I here, and what’s my purpose?”  

Now granted, I completely understand that within our ultimate purpose and priority there are areas of life that help us to live out that purpose. The Lord has given each of us callings, gifts, and talents, that He wants us to use for His glory. Our job is to discover and focus on those few things and eliminate everything else.

For me personally I have 5  key areas of life that I have assigned priority labels to: 1)spiritually – my daily walk with Him, spiritual disciplines, and church life 2)relationships – my family, my faith community, and friends, 3)professionally – the job that I have, to work hard and honor the Lord in all I do. 4)physically-understanding I belong to Him and taking care of my body, using it as an instrument of righteousness to serve Him and others. And 5) financially- Recognizing God is the owner of everything I have, and I am a steward of what He has entrusted to me. And to cultivate a giving and generous heart. I continually ask myself, “What’s the one thing right now that I need to do in each of these areas.” I have a subset of 2 to 3 goals or objectives under each of these priority areas, but they are tasks or things that help me to focus on and fulfill that priority.

Perhaps your list will look different, think it through. If

at any given time in the day, you are at a loss of what to do, ask yourself, “What’s the one thing I need to do now?  Another way to think about this is to remember the word WIN (What’s Important Now?)

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