Priorities

It's one of those passages I have a love-hate relationship with:

"The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. Instead he is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.

But the day of the Lord will come like a thief. The heavens will disappear with a roar; the elements will be destroyed by fire, and the earth and everything done in it will be laid bare.

Since everything will be destroyed in this way, what kind of people ought you to be?" (2Pet 3:9-11a)

The author's emphasis is clearly on holy living, but this passage always forces me to think about something else, too — namely, since everything will be destroyed, what should I spend my time on?

There are so many things that need to be done. Not just dishes and laundry. There are big things that need to be done. Someone needs to fix this mess! I want to take over or supplant my field's professional organization, get on the city council, school board, and maybe Congress. That's on top of things I think I need to learn, books I want to read, and books I want to write. There's not only not enough time in a day; there's not enough time in a life.

So how do we thin out the list? Ask, "What's going to last?"

When everything burns up, what will be left? What will really matter in the grand scheme of things?

You can certainly take this too far — someone's got to run the country, and I think it's good if as many of those people as possible are Christians. And Jesus went to weddings and parties. Life's not all about work, even kingdom work.

But it's also possible to cop out too easy. There are "important" things that aren't, really. Even if they are really important, are they important enough to distract us from the work of the kingdom? Are we building things that will burn at the expense of the things that would last?

People spend their time on what moves them. It's normal to find yourself caught up in the things of this world. How much time are we spending on trivial things? How much do we live like everyone else? Do we blend in with the "normal" people around us?

We're not supposed to be normal. We're supposed to be weird in the right ways, to look at life differently, to live life differently. To have Christ's priorities.