Calling

Establishing Our Priorities

"Until you value yourself, you will not value your time. Until you value your time, you will not do anything with it." ~ M. Scott Peck

"It’s not the daily increase but daily decrease. Hack away at the unessential." ~ Bruce Lee

Now that we have defined our purpose the next step is to ruthlessly eliminate everything that is distracting us from pursuing our mission. We must remove all of the time wasters and all of the nice-to-do activities that are not our assignment. Paul put it like this, "...let us strip off every weight that slows us down, especially the sin that so easily trips us up. And let us run with endurance the race God has set before us." Jesus says we must count the cost. In other words, fulfilling your calling in pursuit of Christ is going to cost you something. Sin is the obvious but it is more than what is sinful. It is also what is not beneficial to your calling. You cannot do everything. You must prioritize. One of the truths of time management is that we cannot manage time, we can only manage our priorities.

We can only begin this work of prioritizing our life around our purpose when we are clear about that purpose. This is not only because of the obvious fact that we have to know what to prioritize but just as importantly, we need a big YES to empower us to say no to the many competing priorities and innocuous requests. It may mean less Netflix or it may mean no longer baking cakes for the after-service cake sale. It may even mean attending fewer church meetings. Yes, any and everything that is not aligned with your calling is up for elimination. The question is not whether it is a good thing but whether it is a God thing. Kingdom leaders are unapologetic about prioritizing their purpose. (Keeping in mind sometimes God asks us to do things that are outside of what we think we are called to do. In that case, do it.)

This may take some time as you may have commitments and constraints that may take months or even years to get out of. That's ok, keep whittling away. The prize is a life that is super focused; fine-tuned for maximum kingdom impact!

Journal wIth Holy Spirit: When you consider where you spend most of your time, effort, and finances, is it aligned with your purpose?