My priorities, and how they came to be {him to Him}

At some point, we all have to come to a conclusion about what is most important to us. I think it took me quite awhile. Throughout my life, different things have been the things I think about the most, and care the most about. At one point, friends. Another time, the way I look. Having the wrong thing as what was most important to me has put me in a bad place before. In such a bad place, that even when I wanted something else to be my top priority, I was stuck for a long time.

 

I’ve been Christian my whole life, accepting Jesus by choice when I was seven. But He wasn’t always the most important thing in my life. I have been disappointed again and again by things I had sub-consciously put over Him. People, plans, objects, and anything and everything else. I have tried almost everything to not feel so empty.

 

I have searched time and time again for love, but it has always failed. There has always been an empty spot in my soul. A void. Everyone has one, but the right {or rather, the wrong} situations make the void obvious. You can’t ignore it. It is always starving. I have tried to fill the void inside my soul with people.

 

If there is one thing I’ve learned from trying that, it is this.

 

People don’t last.

 

So I’ve tried over and over again. “Maybe this one will be different.” I thought about some. “Surely, this is the one.” I thought about others. “Everyone else could fall away, but not this one. Everyone, except this one.” I thought about a few.

 

And for a while, those people can satisfy your hungry void. It has happened to me so many times. Me thinking the empty has gone away. Me being wrong. Me always being wrong.

 

I have been discouraged so many times, I am surprised that I didn’t decide to reevaluate sooner. But I did, rather recently. I looked back at all the memories, all the faces, all the sadness, and brokenness I had felt. I saw all the people I had committed to. Barely any of them were even in my life. Are. Barely of them are even in my life.

 

I had been doing it wrong. I had been doing it all wrong. I barely ever prayed. I wasn’t awestruck by my own God, who gave his life so I could live. Going to church, and staying quiet while the pastor talks doesn’t mean anything. I used to think that’s what it meant to be Christian. That it didn’t have anything to do with your relationship with God at all.

 

So, several months ago, I went through something no one should. The betrayal of a best friend. I was crushed–for awhile. Then something happened.

 

My mom had already told me what she thought I should do. Move on. I didn’t want to.

 

So that night, sad, and lonely, I turned to God, as I sometimes did when I was sad.

 

I prayed some, asking Him why? Why did He have to do this to me? Anger was short lived, and soon I was just asking Him to show me what He wanted me to do. I wasn’t answered the way we all hope, immediately, and miraculously, perhaps by a multitude of Angels.

 

I popped in my earbuds, and flipped to a random radio station. Shake it off, By Taylor Swift was playing, and I found it…..ironic. I was slightly annoyed as well. “No, I am not shaking it off,” I thought. Nothing more.

 

I reached for my devotional, and opened to yesterdays message, as I had not felt like reading it the day before.

 

That was when the miracle happened. As the pop singer belted her basic message; Shake it off!, I read the title of the devotion.

 

Shake it off.

 

I lost my breath. With shaking hands, I read everything it said. The message was simple, but it was obvious.

 

You can tell when something is merely a coincidence. This was not.

 

I didn’t want to accept it. I wanted to say, “Yes, but this one was special.”

 

I heard the voice whisper. The voice that had always known. Maybe my smarter more realistic half, or maybe not me at all. “But was he? Jesus wouldn’t do that thing that he did, would he?”

 

“Well….no.”

 

“That’s your answer then.”

 

What made him so special….so special that him, AND Jesus could ‘work together’ to fill your void?

 

I knew that God was telling me what he wanted me to do, but my answer was, “yes, I will. I will move on. Just not yet.”

 

I should’ve known better than to argue with the King of Kings.

 

I laid down, turned the light off, and continued to listen to the radio.

 

A woman called in to the station I was listening to, and told the radio host a breakup story. I was only partly listening, until I heard this:

 

“And now, I’ve decided to remember all the happy times I’ve had with him, but it’s time to move on.”

 

Oh.

 

At that point, I was in shock. Never before had God communicated with me so openly. My thoughts were flooded with one message. “Move on. Move on. Move on. Move on.”

 

Things like that happened to me everyday, until Sunday, when I went to Youth Group. There, I knew God was trying to get to me, in one big, obvious move.

 

“Perhaps you have been committing to the wrong people. As humans, we easily start to put earthly things, superficial things, above God. You have to remember that in the end, all you have is yourself, and God. Families are dysfunctional. Friendships and relationships fall apart. All you have is your own mind and soul, and Jesus.”

 

That was what the leader told us as the message for the week.

 

That is how my top priority changed from him, to Him.

 

And since then, He has helped me put the rest of my priorities in place.

 

*God

*Myself, and my well being

*Family

*Friends

*People who need help/helping people

 

Reevaluating my priorities is something I wish I had done a long time ago. It would’ve saved me a lot of heartache. But I am in such a good place today because of all of the hard times, not in spite of them. And that’s not something I did by my own strong will. It was Him.

 

It was always Him. Not him.

 

I used to give myself away to things that were not promised to last forever, {and didn’t}, and God showed me how I was messing up. I didn’t want to let Him in at first, but He never gave up on me. Because He showed me the right way to live, I am not afraid or empty anymore.