What’s Your Priorities?

Priorities. Many books are written about this subject. Books designed to help you accomplish more, enjoy more, produce more, be more and do more if you learn the secret of prioritizing. Most of these books are designed with the goal of success in mind so you can become efficient and effective. Parents, teachers, peers and employers cite the mantra “get your priorities straight.” We learn early the idea behind all the priority teaching; master yourself and you will master your life. Often the target is to maximize things and people so you can maximize you. But is maximizing me the right priority?

There is a better way. Let’s look at a fine example of desire driven priorities in King Jotham.

2 Chronicles 27:6 So Jotham became mighty because he ordered his ways before the Lord his God.

Let’s unpack this statement.

It is clear that there was a priority, “he ordered his ways.” Some might argue he achieved a goal of becoming mighty simply because he ordered his ways. Becoming great is accomplished by ordering your life. Sound familiar? This kind of teaching is rampant in both secular and Christian literature, but there is an underlying problem. Our western assumptions leave room to substitute the “American dream” for “before the Lord”, with the goal of becoming “mighty” as opposed to knowing God. Unfortunately this happens often.

But what does that little verse mean then if it is not just about making a priority plan in order to achieve greatness? Well, it means the priority is to know God’s word and His ways so one might do his will. Let’s discover it.

“…[H]e ordered his ways”. For a king in the Old Testament the first priority is to hand copy the book of the Law under the direction of God’s priest.

Deuteronomy 17:18 "Now it shall come about when he sits on the throne of his kingdom, he shall write for himself a copy of this law on a scroll in the presence of the Levitical priests.

This work would have been tedious and meticulously scrutinized by the scribes. It was not busy work assigned to dull the mind and develop discipline; to the contrary, it was an exercise with intended instruction. As pen and ink intersected life in the temple, opportunity arose to see the ways of God worked out tangibly. Seeing sacrifice, smelling incense, watching priest purification rites, seeing people ministered, to begin to understand sin and atonement. It would create opportunity for the Priest to instruct while the king copied. A place of interchange, dialog, learning what God had said and what God is still saying. A chance to hear the heart beat of God and place his life in rhythm to it.

But the lessons learned in that day of spiritual formation were not to be forgotten as a part of climbing the ladder of higher priorities; no, they were a priority to be constantly and consistently upheld. Notice the next verse.

Deuteronomy 17:19 "And it shall be with him, and he shall read it all the days of his life, that he may learn to fear the Lord his God, by carefully observing all the words of this law and these statutes,

This Word of God is to be his constant reminder and continual barometer. It is what God has spoken and what God intends. It is learning the depths of the love of God hidden in the crevices of His words. It is to walk in God’s love and display God’s wisdom to make God’s name great in a world that has lost her way.

Further, in the process of “ordering his ways,” the king was to understand equity and justice. He was to remember his position and power were not even the goal but a gift. He was to exercise this gift without partiality among all people.

Deuteronomy 17:20 that his heart may not be lifted up above his countrymen and that he may not turn aside from the commandment, to the right or the left; in order that he and his sons may continue long in his kingdom in the midst of Israel.

“Ordering his ways” is the priority of knowing who God is, loving who God is, learning how God lives, and living as God intends, both now and forever. Not all kings followed this priority, but Jotham did. Leaving one application for us all, how will we prioritize?

Chris Gilliam © 2009