A Question of Priorities

Tonight, I am posting much later than I had intended.  The to-do list has not seen much marked off.  I just got around to replying to a couple of essential emails;  the others will wait until tomorrow.  I have had a full day, but not one that an outsider would consider incredibly productive. When it comes right down to it, it is simply a matter of priorities.

This week, my nieces are here to visit their grandparents.  While I had planned to get a lot of work done for my piano studio's advertising campaign, I realized that family time was much more important.  Rather than working on flyers, my fingers are stained with dye as we made tie-dye shirts.  (I'll post pictures of the finished products later this week.)  No time to build that new web page;  we built a really neat horse and English telephone booth.  Didn't finalize the outline for tomorrow evening's service.  I had my arms covered in fudge brownies.

Sometimes we simply have to take a step back from the grind and focus our attention on what is most important.  It's not surprising to many of us when we learn that someone is making time for their family.  We'll drop anything to be with them.  Sadly, it seems rarer that we drop things in order to make time for our spiritual growth.  Sure, we go to church each week and sing in the choir.......but are we really making our spiritual walk a priority?  Are we willing to invest significant time into our relationship with God and allow some other "things" to take a back seat for a while?

If I didn't take some time out of my busy schedule today to spend with the girls, I would have sent them a clear message:  "I don't value you as much as these other things."  I am a realist and know that we can't always make time for our family to the exclusion of other responsibilities.  The girls understand that sometimes there are things I simply have to do.  If I consistently push them aside, though, the results will be damaging to our relationship.  Do we expect anything less in our relationship with Christ?  Am I really making Him a priority if the only time I carve out for Him is a few hours on Sunday and Wednesday?  I think Jesus summed up this principle best when He said, "For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also."  (Matthew 6:21, NIV)