Get Your Priorities Straight - September 23, 2013

Matthew 11:28
28 Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.

Most of you are doing too much right now. Your schedules are too busy. You have so many irons in the fire that the fire is about to be put out. You're smothering it.

How do you know when you're doing too much in your life? How do you know when you're out of God's will? How do you know if all the things you're doing are what God expects you to do or you just put those expectations on yourself?

The answer is simple: You're always tired. It is not God's will for your life to always be tired. God never intended for you to go around with that heavy a load.

In Matthew 11:28-30 (TEV), Jesus said: "Come to me, all of you who are tired from carrying your heavy loads and I will give you..." ... more loads? Is that what He says? "I'll just dump more on you. We'll add to your schedule." No, He says, "I'll give you rest." The yoke I will give you is easy and the load I will put on you is light.'

What's got you burdened? Most of us carry a yoke of burden that we've put on ourselves because of unresolved guilt and unrealistic expectations. We're trying to prove that we matter.

You don't have to prove you matter to God. You simply do.

This is particularly encouraging to me. In retrospect, it probably shouldn't be because I'm usually far from busy- I just procrastinate and suck at time management. I like to tell myself that I have so much work and I'm so busy, but that's simply not true atm. Anyways, I think a lot of us would stop trying to overdo things if we knew that someone in the world accepts and loves us no matter how many honors courses or clubs we join. I often feel the pressure to be smarter, more athletic and look presentable at all times. Sometimes we just have to slow down and stop trying so hard. Especially these days when everyone is stressed about grades, college, and asian parents screaming at you for a B+. At the same time we can't take this message as an excuse to be lazy or slack off. I think with any message, there's always a right and wrong way to interpret it. The right way, in this case would be to not work yourself dry and always leave room in your schedule for God.

I think what God appreciates is our undivided attention on Him, for the greater good of our relationship with Him. Desiring something else while keeping a close relationship with God is absolutely distorted. If we're too busy for God, then something must be taken away to make room for God. Prioritizing Him simply tells God what He's worth to us. It seems really harsh but what good is it if God is only worth 5-20 minutes of our day? It equals to about 1% of our day and I feel as if I'm being challenged and unfortunately I've haven't been doing so well lately. Although quality time definitely beats quantity time, how much we give Him could be easily defined to how well we give it. Much like a to-do list, I ask myself, is God at the top or at the bottom? Do I enjoy spending time with Him or do I just squeeze Him in?

This is something that I have to keep telling myself, that I have to set my priorities straight. Many times when I feel tired after a long day of school and homework I ask myself what is more important: an extra 15 minutes of sleep or spending time with God in a devotional? The answer is obvious but at times I struggle with simple questions such as these. This devo reminded me that God cares for us and that we matter to him, so the question is: How much does God matter to me? Setting my priorities straight means always putting God first because He first loved us. Although this devo was a short one it really packed an encouraging lesson to me. Nothing is more important than God and nothing should get in the way of growing closer to Him.

It's especially easy for people like us to become emcumbered by what we do. Being on the praise team, meeting every week, practicing in between, all of that, it's no easy feat. Couple that with all our extracurriculars and school activities and it's nothing short of amazing. That being said, it's easy to get tired and burn out. Even Dan Kim from before explained how his ministry was basically jeopardized by the entire leadership burning out at once. While it's great to give God everything you got, consistently giving more than that can be tiring over a long period of time. It's important to take a breather once in a while. If praise is becoming tiresome, or even devos, take a short break until you can work at your full potential. No clue what the title of the devo has to do with the content, but I guess in terms of priorities, God is number one, but self-conditioning to make sure you can do your best is also important. Just chillax once in a while. The 5 week break I took some time ago worked wonders for me. I didn't realize how much I needed that time off until I had it. Coming back, I felt almost rejuvinated, with a healthy and full heart. so yeuhhh don't overwork

It's good to keep growing in faith and get involved, but don't over do yourself.
I'm pretty sure most of us have been tired of doing something like a routine. Even coming to church every Sunday can be something that you may have lost your joy in.
We are humans. We aren't going to always be on fire and be able to sprint the whole way.
So take breaks when necessary. Some do take advantage of that allowance of breaks and become inconsistent with what they do. Take that breather for maybe reflection or just some seperate time to God. Don't forget you still have a path to go down.

Keep a steady pace in all that you do. You know your limits. It's alright if there needs to be a break time to time.
~Audrey~

Wow. This just clicked with me.
The people who really knows me, know that I am horrible with my priorities. My parents say "set your priorities straight" more than "공부해". It's that bad. I'm always looking for more things to do (with good intentions), do them all in the wrong order and in the end, I get overwhelmed. Always.
This devotion got me thinking about why I'm looking for more things to wear myself out and looking for more things to de-prioritize God. I guess even unintentionally, we can sometimes put God in the wrong order when he should be number one in everything.

I got two important points out of this devo; one being that you shouldn't overwhelm yourself with things to do, and the other being that our priorities are probably in the wrong order.

I do find that I am often in a state of being awake but not functioning to the fullest, but at the same time I don't feel like I do very many things that are actually specific things that one does.

I thought a lot about the second part and when I really considered what my priorities seemed to be based on how I devote my time, I really felt the need to do something to change the order of the list. One of the things that I realized was that I waste a lot of time in my day and that I could spend that time doing something productive or at least something beneficial, like sleep/rest. Another thing that I realized was that my relationship with God is slowly becoming more of a task or subject rather than an actual relationship. I feel like i'm doing what I should be doing as a Christian like reading the bible or doing devotions but I find that my prayers are shallow and losing meaning or purpose other than for the sake of praying.

I also thought that putting God on a priority list isn't exactly the right way to go either, because that kind of list is for things that can be done and forgotten for the rest of the day. Instead of putting God on a list of things, I think that it is important to see how God will be there in every aspect of your life, and that Him being there is not to burden or stress you, but He will give you rest.

Everyone needs a break, it is never good to keep pushing yourself when you are tired because eventually you will break. You must take breaks when you get tired or you just dont get the feel for doing what you've been doing. It is better to take regular short breaks or pauses rather than a huge long break or you just completely break. Taking huge long breaks will not only impact you, but it will effect the team as a whole. No need to be shy about it, if you need or feel like you need a break just ask me. Im not asking you to take a break, i just saying if you feel dull or you dont feel the same way you used to feel about praise, just ask me for a break

Working hard and doing everything to your best extent is good, but overworking beyond what you can fathom is unhealthy. We have to sometimes distinguish between what can be good for us through work, or what could be potentially harmful to us. I feel that if we have that sort of healthy workload "mindset", or "mentality" we can be able to recognize what is unhealthy to us.
Our burdens don't solely come from work, but it could be the worries that we carry or are plagued by, or the problems that we face on a daily basis. We become frustrated with the things we can't control thus resulting in extra burden, stress, and mental/emotional/spiritual weight.
We always try to keep a certain image of ourselves, and we work hard to maintain the image that we want, and want others to see. We  try to prove our worth to people so desperately, and that desperation will be never fulfilled. We get so lost in trying to prove our worth to others that we often forget that our worth is already defined by The One Who loves. We get disorientated by trying to prove ourselves to this world, society, our friends, whatever it may be and prioritize that before God, Who is The ONLY One who truly cares.
Why are we trying so hard to prove our worth to this world, when our existence here is only temporary? Our worth has already been shown to us through Jesus Christ.

"If we find ourselves with a desire that nothing in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that we were made for another world." - C.S. Lewis