Wednesday, January 26, 2011

Interests of the Heart

 I have been thinking a lot lately about all the 'stuff' in our lives.  I have been thinking about what really matters.  I have been thinking about my priorities.  While watching a terrific program that I watch regularly, I heard him pose a very interesting question.  A question I thought was worth pondering about and writing about.  He asked, "What mattered to you on 9-11?"  In other words, when you saw the plane fly into the towers, what were your first thoughts?  I think the answer would be unanimous.  We thought about our families.  We wanted to make sure they knew about this and wanted to know what they felt.  If we had family in NY we wanted to know they were okay.  The second thing we thought about is our country.  We were scared with the vulnerability of our country.  We were worried about what was coming next.

Let me pose a question.  Did any of you think about your computer?  Did any of you think about your brand new I-POD?  (Did they even have I-PODs back then?)  Did any of you think about the next baseball practice?  If your car would have gone up in smoke would you have cared?  I think it is safe to say that as long as our family was okay we were going to be okay. 

Let me pose another question.  What are our priorities?  What should our priorities be?  If I were to make a list of my priorities truthfully, I think I would be scared of what that list would look like.  If I were to make a list of what I want my priorities to be, here is what it would say.

1. God
2. Family
3. Friends
4. Country

That is a very small list.  I don't even have my computer, cell phone, i-pod, house, cars, TV, clothes, shoes or any of the other 'stuff' on there.  If we really sit back and think about what really matters to us and what we are spending our life doing, I think it is two very different things.

Do we need to text message all the time?  Do we need to check our voice mail more than once a day?  Should we play on our cell phones in front of our kids?  Should we be checking Facebook every day?  Do we need to DVR hours and hours of shows every day or week even?  Should we spend our whole life driving our kids to all the hundreds of activities we have signed them up for?  Or should we spend hours every day singing and playing with our kids?  Should we spend time cleaning and having a house of order?  Should we get our food storage ready and organized?  Should we pray and read the scriptures for as many hours as we spend on the computer or in front of the TV?  Should we spend time actually listening to our children, spouses, friends, and co-workers?

If we really put God first then most of our day should be spent with Him, talking to Him, learning about Him and talking to our children about Him.  If we put our family second then the other half of our day should be serving our children, parents, and spouses.  We try to have family night one night a week where we play games, pray, have a lesson and sing.  Our five year old begs to have family night every night.  But why not?  We should have family night every night if we can.  Especially if our kids are begging to do it.  What is more important than that?  If friends and our country come after that then how many hours a week should we serve our friends, volunteer to our community and learning about our country?

I am going to try to remember this and rearrange my priorities.  How about you?

"For me the only things of interests are those linked to the heart" Audrey Hepburn

2 comments:

Michelle H said...

Thank you for writing this, Annie! I'm going to print it out and break it apart-well, I guess break myself apart. It's beautiful!

Crystal said...

THat is quite a bold statement to make on a social media platform. I'm not being negative...I'm being very serious. You are absolutely right....then why does it seem like a profound statement. I, too, am a believer. I accepted Christ several years ago while my hubby was serving 15 months in Iraq.

I agree there is a lot of "distraction" in our world today. I think that now more than ever it is harder to put our faith and family first and second. Hard...but not impossible.

On 911, I was at home with our oldest (then 2 years old). Hubby was teaching a classroom of 6th graders. And he immediately called me, because all military personnel were put on the "highest alert". We may have only been in a small state of South Dakota, but we felt every moment of that day. Because of that day, my husband spent 15 mos in Iraq and is about to leave for 12 months in Afghanistan. This world is big and sometimes scarey...and I find I can't carry my load. I walk and talk with God daily...but it still isn't enough. My soul yearns for moments with Him.

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