Family First

I have been following Amie Heverly on Social Media for over 3 years now. We were pregnant together and she made fitness and pregnancy seem possible. Years later I never thought that someone who inspired me on my fitness journey would be sharing her gifts on my blog. God works things out like that sometime. I am honored to have Amie Christine to guest post today for our final Family First FaithFueled Friday!

WHAT DOES GOD PRIORITY LIST LOOK LIKE?

Over the last few years, my priorities have changed drastically.

As a single mom of three boys, I have come to cherish every single moment with my boys, the good, the bad, the great, the funny, the embarrassing, the ugly, the tears, the joy…

I have taken a step back to evaluate everything I do in life.
Funny how having kids can make you do that…

I want my children to one day to wake up and say,
I know what is right, I know what God would have me do, I know how to live healthily, I know I can do all things I set my mind to, I know that I am strong, I trust God, and I know He will carry me through…. Because MY MOM WAS THE EXAMPLE, DAY IN, AND DAY OUT!

You see, children are precious. Children absorb every little thing. Children are to be taught correctly, as a priority!

Deuteronomy 11:19-21 “You shall teach them to your children, talking about them when you are sitting in your house, and when you are walking by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates, that your days and the days of your children may be multiplied in the land that the Lord swore to your fathers to give them, as long as the heavens are above the earth.”

You see, not only are your words important, but your actions every day need to be with intention!
Your actions, the way you carry yourself, present yourself, speak of yourself and others, the way you interact, the way you react, your attitude, your perspective, your drive, your ambition….

IT ALL MATTERS!

How you do life, is how your kids will do life!
You may not realize it, but what you say and do actually is TRAINING your child!

We need to be more aware of the words we speak, and how we act daily, to train our children up properly.

Proverbs 22:6 Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it.

We must must be intentional in how we live out our everyday life!

We have to make these things a priority!

Ok, so…

Lets take a second to talk about priorities.

In this busy world, we live in, it is easy to get caught up in chasing our job, chasing dreams, chasing status and chasing money.

However, God calls us to have a particular order of priorities in our life.
This is
#1 God
#2 Husband/Wife
#3 Kids
#4 Work
#5 (fill in the blank)

Our world today, however, has flipped this order completely upside down. Often we put everything before family and God. When we have time, we get to church when we have time we play with the kids, when we have time we spend time with our husband or wife.

Definition of PRIORITY

plural
priorities
1. 1a (1): the quality or state of being prior (2): precedence in date or position of publication

This means that YOU MAKE IT IMPORTANT! You make it BEFORE anything else in your life.

Ok, so if God calls us to put Him first, and then our spouse, and then our children, and THEN work, this means we HAVE TO MAKE IT PRECEDENT in our life!

Our human nature will cause us to want to do everything else first. However, if we can keep to the God order, EVERYTHING else will fall into place!

Listen, in all honesty, I have had this priority list all backward a few years back. I was chasing my job because I thought this was going to be the way to make enough money to be then able to take care of my kids better. However, my family in the mix got the left over me. They had the last of the energy of me. Not only does God call us to put Him and then our family above work, but merely, I realized it was not fair of me to give my family my leftovers. And so I began placing them first. I started putting my family after time with God.

Listen, as I mentioned before, I am a single mom of three boys. It is easy to slip into the I HAVE TO WORK, “mode.” Because human nature is screaming, YOU HAVE TO WORK HARDER, WORK LONGER, because OTHERWISE, YOU WILL NOT BE ABLE TO … pay for your house, feed your kids, take them on vacations… etc. etc.

But the truth is when we keep FAMILY first… well after God, the rest will fall into place.

When we honor God in His way, then He takes care of us, PERIOD!

So I encourage you to evaluate your priorities. Evaluate, what is indeed coming first, second and third.