Important Over Unessential (Daily Encouragement)
“Let us go to the house of the Lord!” – Psalm 122:1
This week we have laid out the reason we “go” to the house of the LORD (God) and what happens to us when we do (transformation). With that, we don’t want to miss the call “to go”. We could agree with the reason to go and see what happens when we do, but we live in a culture where it simply is not a priority to “go”. Going to church often get’s lost in the sea of things we have to do in a given week. In his book “Simplified”, Bill Hybels shares how the “important” things in life often get pushed out by the “unessential” things in life:
Simplified living is about more than doing less. It’s being who God called us to be, with a wholehearted, single-minded focused. It’s walking away from innumerable lesser opportunities in favor of the few to which we’ve been called and for which we’ve been created. It’s a lifestyle that allows us, when our heads hit the pillow at night, to reflect with gratitude that our day was well invested and the varied responsibilities of our lives are in order.
If we don’t change how we live, our overcomplicated world will begin to feel frighteningly normal. We will become accustomed to life at a frantic pace, no longer able to discriminate between the important and the unessential. And that’s the danger: When we fritter away our one and only life doing things that don’t really matter, we sacrifice the things that do matter.
“…the number one priority in my daily, weekly, monthly and annual rhythm is to stay as closely connected with God as I possibly can. It is by far the biggest replenisher in my life.”
According to the scriptures, the call to gather and be a part of a church family is an essential aspect of life and following Jesus. Push back on the “overcomplicated” and “frantic pace” of the world and make the essential and important priority of staying connected with God and his family a priority.