“The key is not to prioritize what’s on your schedule but to schedule your priorities.” — Stephen Covey, author of The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People
When Stephen Covey recommends people schedule priorities rather than prioritize items on a schedule, he is asking his audience to shift a paradigm. It’s easy to write down everything that needs to be done and prioritize those activities once written down. It’s much harder to first list only the priorities and schedule everything else around them.
His statement produces a few associative leaps. The first concerns an object lesson remembered from many, many years ago. The second relates to a book, namely, Paul David Tripp’s Awe.
Priorities, Schedules, and Objects
When I was in AWANA as a third or fourth grader, I vividly recall an object lesson about setting God above all other things. The AWANA commander presented a clear plastic container and two sources of fillers, sand and translucent orange Ping-Pong balls. She first filled the container with sand and tried to squish in the Ping-Pong balls. The effort failed. The balls would not fit within the container.
She emptied the container and started again. This time, she added the Ping-Pong balls first. She then poured the sand. Everything fit. The sand squeezed into the container without pushing anything out.
I’m sure the phenomenon can be explained with science, but that’s not the point. The lesson shows that when I, the container, schedule priorities first — God, reading the Bible, praying, spending time with other believers — everything else settles around them. If I try to cram everything else in first, leakage occurs.
I can’t possibly accomplish everything if I’m trying to manage everything. When I let go of control and settle upon the important things first, peace comes. I remain steady because I fix my gaze upon priorities, not schedules.
Priorities, Schedules, and Awe
Paul David Tripp says no one lives “listologically.” That is, no one lists priorities and accomplishes them in the same order every day. That’s not how lists work. Lists, or schedules, detail a number of priorities, all of which are “important in some way and cannot be responsibly ignored” (171).
Tripp continues, “Life is simply not a list of priorities but rather the coming together of the inescapable dimensions of calling. You are called to relationships, you are called to work, and you are called to God” (171). While each of the callings is important, I would argue that the final one stands preeminent. Neglecting my calling to God or setting it on equal footing with work and relationships turns God into so much “sand.”
To get work, relationships, and lists right, I’ve got to get my headspace right. I must remember the commandments, both the ones found in the Old Testament and reaffirmed in the New. God sets himself before all things because he is before all things. He set the world in motion; he sets me in motion. God holds all things together, including whatever tasks and relationships he calls me to.
Because of who God is, he has every right to command me to worship him and him alone. Jesus correctly answers the teachers of religion and the law when asked about the greatest commandment: love God and love others. On such actions hang all the law and prophets.
Priorities, Schedules, and God
More to the point, on such actions hang everything else. God before and beside me keeps me on the right path (Proverbs 3:5-6, NASB). God, as my first and primary priority, safeguards everything else. Jesus tells me in Matthew, “Do not worry […] but seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you” (Matthew 6:25-34, NASB).
David says much the same in Psalm 37:4. He urges people to delight themselves in the Lord. If they do, God will give them the desires of their hearts. He will ensure the “sand” fits because he, the Ping-Pong ball, is at the center of it all, ordering and making sense of it.
Image: Death to the Stock Photo