Family First

Back in September, I wrote this post to identify my top life priorities. I want to add some thoughts about this list. The top three items can be summed up like this:

1. God
2. Family
3. Christian Ministry

What I have discovered, though, is that people take #2 for granted. And by people, I mean me, of course. It gets bumped down, sometimes accidentally and sometimes intentionally.

We allow ourselves to focus on our life at church, or on the talents that God has given us to touch people, or on what God is doing in our lives. Our schedules become devoted to it since we're active each weekend at church. Our money gets sucked up by it as we spend it on church projects, on Sunday School supplies, on art material and on a musical instrument.

We know that we can spend time with our families after church has ended on Sundays. We assume that our families recognize the importance of our Christian ministry. We expect them to be eager to help those in need, to avoid selfishness and let us get on with God's work. I mean, our family pretty much has to support us in God's calling, right?

If that requires a little juggling of our family time table, so be it. If our kids need to be patient while we pray for another hour with somebody, that's a great lesson for them. If our spouse can't see how much people need us, we're sure that they will mature and see it eventually.

And while we sincerely and passionately say that our family is central in our lives, we act just a little differently and modify our list like this:

1. God & Ministry
2. Family

We equate our Christian ministry with God. That's the point here: Our ministry is not God. God is a real person, with whom we have a relationship, a guy that we can love and that will love us in return. God is not an action or a requirement or a duty or a calling. He wants us to place HIM first in our lives, and he knows that helping other people is just a result of that - it's just not the main thing.

If we spend more time in church than with our kids, what does that cost them? If we're more willing to take a meeting with another Christian rather than relax with our spouse, how will that affect the marriage? If we are more concerned with a homeless person that with our own parents, who gets left alone? If we give more money to the missions project at church, will we dip into the education fund for the children?

God does want us to help others, and it's a good thing if our families are involved in that as well. God just doesn't want "Godly" ministry to be done at the cost of our own families and our close relationships. That's not Godly. That's not even good. That's just misunderstanding the principle that our love must be living in our homes first, and only after that can our love be directed to others.