First Things First.

This tweet from Pete Wilson has been messing with me this week:

Earlier today I had a phone call with my good friend Justin Maust. I love Justin – no matter what a conversation is supposed to be about, God always uses his words to challenge me.  Justin shared that his passion right now is to be in the flow of the Spirit, to have right priorities and focus in their proper place.  Pressures from everywhere can cause us to get this all wrong.  Being in the flow of the Spirit at all times and in all situations helps us know His desires and how to keep our priorities in the order He wants.

First things first.

Good is the enemy of best.

Drifting in this area is one of the easiest things to do.  Ultimately we sacrifice what’s primary for what’s secondary. Both are good, but they aren’t equal.

A tweet, a phone conversation, a dinner conversation with my wife, some Brennen Manning messages, some Alan Hirsch reading, and some big reflection this week have created a desire in me to recalibrate things and ensure that my priorities and passions are in their right order.

I want first things first in my life.  In this order, I want to be obsessed:

• with loving, knowing and experiencing my Abba Father on an ever-deepening level.
• with loving my wife in a way that honors her and communicates what a gift she is to me – she is my bride, she completes me.  She has my heart, my thoughts, my eyes.
• with loving my wife and children in a way that makes it clear that they are my first congregation.  That my time and energy communicate that they are more important to me than any other human relationship I have.
• with loving friends, those I work with, and those I lead for who they are, not for what they do or what I can get from them – or conditional on my ability to change them.  To intentionally give and add value to those I share live with and influence.
• with loving our city, our community, our world in a way that causes them to give God glory and praise because of what they see in me (Matthew 5:16).

And if God grows a great church in that process, that’s awesome.

But it’s not my primary goal.

And I don’t believe it’s his primary goal either.