Priorities

Okay, confession time.

I have a tendency to get my priorities in the wrong order.

This sounds insane, but I all too often put school as too high of a priority. Getting to know God is more important than getting into Stanford, but sometimes I forget that.

Sometimes I mix up the order of Jesus' words in Mark 12. I get myself so focused on loving other people and planning ways to show my love for them that I forget to show my love for God.

I think a big part of my problem is that these aren't inherently bad things. School is good; loving my neighbour is good. They're not what it's all about, though.

Over the past year especially, I’ve put too much of a priority on apologetics and researching contrary worldviews. I wasn’t fully aware of this flaw in order of priorities until it hit me last summer. I was in the middle of an apologetics course, and we had spent the entire day talking about Islam. I said at one point in conversation after class, that it would be interesting to read through the Koran. As soon as the words were out of my mouth, I had this little whisper of a thought: “Have you ever read through the entire bible?” It wasn’t a guilting statement; it was just a thought that forced me to think about my priorities. No, I haven’t read the bible cover to cover. I’m getting better at reading it more often, but I’m not going to read through the Koran until I’ve put that much time into the Bible.

I find myself falling back into these habits lately, and have to remind myself to straighten it out. Studying other worldviews and apologetics isn’t inherently bad, but it’s not what it’s all about.