When the ideal and reality don't match up

I’ve mentioned in previous posts that Lent is a lot more than just giving something up for 40 days. It’s a time to reconnect with God, to get your priorities back in order, and to work on being the person God wants you to be. Of course, this can be done at any time of the year, not just during Lent, but this year I learned about Lent at the same time that I was doing some serious thinking about things I need to change. What needs to change in my life for me to be the person God has called me to be?

For the past few weeks, I have spent a lot of time reflecting on my priorities. If you ask most people to name their top priorities, they will probably say something along the lines of, “God, my family, my job,” and continue down the list from there. If you asked me about my priorities, I would be likely to say the same thing—but during my moments of pure honesty with myself, I realize that these are the things I know my priorities should be, but often they are not the things in which I actually invest the most time and energy. My ideal and reality don’t match up, and that is something that must change.

Step one for me is to identify the things that need to change. During prayer and reflection, I have thought of many areas in my life that could use some work. I feel that oftentimes I am selfish, thinking more about my own wants and needs than the wants and needs of those around me. Laziness has taken too prominent a place in my daily life, and I don’t accomplish things that need to be accomplished. Relationships need to change, and the problems of selfishness and laziness definitely contribute to the issues that need to change in my relationships—especially my relationships with Clark and Elijah. I’ve noticed that I spend too much time focusing on things that aren’t really important. A big one for me is wasting time online. While the internet is certainly not a bad thing in itself, it has begun to take up too much of my time, and the result is that I don’t spend enough of my time focusing on my family and my work as a stay-at-home mom. Also, as I wrote in my last post, I have not done nearly enough to help others who desperately need help, such as the poor, the hungry, the sick, and so on. And I need to take better care of the body I've been given; I need to put nutritious things in it rather than anything and everything I want.

When I read back over the paragraph I just wrote, one particular problem stands out to me—selfishness. I realize I could be more selfish than I am; the problem is that I could stand to be much less selfish than I am. I want to take the focus off of myself and put it on God and others. I don’t think I am unnecessarily imposing this concept on myself; focusing on God and others is a commandment that was emphasized by Jesus. This is the very topic that was addressed at the church service I went to this morning, and it came at a very relevant time for me. In Matthew 22, an expert in the law asked Jesus to tell him what the greatest commandment was. Jesus responded, “ ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ ”

And this brings me to the concept of love. What does it mean to love your neighbor as yourself? Does it mean to think kind thoughts about other people? Sure, but it’s more than that. Love is not a thought or a feeling; it is an action. Loving others involves doing something. It involves putting at least as much focus on them as you would put on yourself. Selfishness is focusing more on yourself than others. I want to focus at least as much on those around me as I do on myself, if not more. In practical terms, this is going to mean flipping my actual priorities upside down. The things I have been spending the most time on need to be moved to the bottom of the list to make room for the things that are truly important.

Next time I’m going to write about the process of realigning my priorities and establishing new priorities. What are my top priorities? What is important but not a top priority? And what is not really that important at all? What will realigning my priorities look like practically in daily life?