What are your priorities? This is a question a friend and I asked each other. The results were interesting and religion may have had a hand in where we differed.
She said her top three priorities (ascending order): being in shape, pursuing happiness, and helping the very few people in this world she cares about.
Mine were a little muddled...I found that I had the text book answers to the question but whenever I thought about what I think about I thought that I think (sorry for that, I think that thought line is thoughtfully entertaining) more about secular things than about God...but it's confusing because a lot of the things I care about or at least the ways I go about them still incorporate God. But He's not what I'm thinking about.
But I'm just dodging the question, yeah? Well don't worry, I'll answer it. Though I'll be doing my top five because I know all of you just salivate over your laptops until my next post to know more about me. In ascending order: taking care of my body, being more intelligent than those who surround me, taking care of my friends, (these next two were when I had serious trouble) finding someone to marry that fits my qualifications (not going into those since that would take its own post...), and pursuing God until I collapse.
But the big problem I had was that a lot of these intertwine...I am taking care of a temple of God when I exercise, I strive to know more than others only to give them a hand up, I take care of my friends because I care about them and think that's how God would want me to treat His children, and my future wife would have to have a serious Christian foundation. So as an aggregate, pursuing God does come first, but for the most part I rarely explicitly think about it...
But maybe I'm just making an excuse? Maybe the cold truth is God isn't number one in my life. In theory I know He matters so much more than me but something gets lost in translation from the sketch paper to real life. And here is where we sin, I suppose. We all know what we "should" do but alas that's not for us.
In fact I remember in my teenage years I thought of myself as God's twisted angel, willing to help others through questionable means. I would do whatever I thought yielded the best results for God, no matter the personal cost. Ha, I was (and still am) quite dramatic in my thoughts. I imagined being at the gates of heaven, seeing all the people God saved through using my as He did and having St. Peter say I couldn't enter the gates because I hadn't lived a good life though I had good intentions. To me this was beautiful, to be condemned for having the strength and conviction to do what no one else was willing to do, the right thing. Lies and deception? Psst! Mere venial sins, what are they compared to being an instrument of God. His dark knight.
Then as I became more introspective, I realized that this may not be God's thought process but my own pride mixed with Satan. It was a lack of faith essentially. I wasn't willing to trust that not sinning, I could serve God efficiently. I had to live by my own code, I threw God's out...not the best plan. So now I've stepped away from this thinking a little (though not completely). God made me strong enough to accomplish whatever He set out for me to do. I need to trust in that...and trust in Him...
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