Prayer To Make And Keep First Things First

 FIRST THINGS FIRST

I love the little story about a dad who came up with an idea to entertain his bored eight-year-old daughter.  He tore a large map of the world into small pieces, mixed them up, and told her to put them back together like a jigsaw puzzle.  To her father’s surprise, the girl completed the puzzle in a few minutes.   “How did you do it?”  he asked.  “It was easy,” she said.  “At first I couldn’t fit all the lines and dots, and colors together on the map.  Then I saw part of a man’s face on the back of one of the pieces.  So I turned all of the pieces over.  When I got the man on the back together, the world on the front took care of itself.” 

This little story illustrates the important principle of “First things first.”  Getting our priorities straight and lining our behaviours up behind them.  One of the foundational priorities for all of us is sorting out our life practices according to the truth.  Jesus said this:

You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. A second is equally important: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ The entire law and all the demands of the prophets are based on these two commandments.”  Matthew 22:37-40

The little girl had her priorities right when she realized that when individuals are put together, “the world takes care of itself.”  When the person of Jesus Christ and life in relationship with Him begins to come together for us, our world gets taken care of.  First things first.

God’s way of lasting change and improvement in our lives is to change us from the inside out.  Our circumstances and relationships will improve when we admit that we are powerless over them and ask God to change our thinking and believing. 

We must have a foundation of truthful thoughts and healthy desires in place before we can hope to progressively build our life in recovery. First things first.

What influences our behaviour is what we are carrying around in our hearts.  We need to allow God to bring truth, as well as forgiveness and healing to our hearts.  First things first! 

God wants to deal with a sinful, broken, and screwed up world.  He does it one person at a time.  God wants us to do the same.   He wants us to see the reality of our sickness and our need to be in relationship with Him.  He wants us to have pure hearts that prioritize His presence and His agenda for life.  He wants us to “walk the talk” before we “talk the walk.” 

No one lives well in life or recovery alone.  We need other people.  We were created for relationship and fellowship.  We walk in a hurting world.  God wants to use our lives in recovery to bring healing and hope to others but it will only be effective if we live “first things first.”  Are we living in healing, forgiveness, and surrender to God’s will?  Are we spending quality time getting to know God and opening our hearts to Him?  Have we made our lives accountable to others who’ve walked the path well before us? Are we looking for ways each day to walk in relationship with others so we can offer hope and healing to them?

Heavenly Father, We want to live well.  We want to live as You intended because then we know life will be full of joy and purpose.  Help us to allow our minds, hearts, and behaviours to be shaped by Your priorities, cleansed with Your forgiveness, empowered for new life by Your Holy Spirit operating in us to heal and change us. 

Help us to give time to You each day first to seek Your will as we pray and meditate on Your Words, praying only for knowledge of Your will and the power to carry it out.  Give us the courage to focus on what’s important and filter out the distractions and obsessions that have shaped our thinking and behaving for so long. 

Change us from the inside out.  Give us new minds and hearts as we live in loving response to Your great love for us.  Amen