THE MAIN THING IS THE MAIN THING by Christie Smith

My mind is still on the subject I last wrote about...answering the specific questions of life. The big ones like "Where are we supposed to live? Work? Do we homeschool or send the kids to a school? Which school? The kids have left the nest...now what?" The questions never end, no matter what age or season of life. So, how do we figure out the answers? I said that we had to answer the foundational questions first...what are we supposed to be doing as children of God and then as women of God? If we aren't correct in our views and answers to these questions, the answers to the more specific questions in our life will be off as well. It's all related. So, where do we begin?

Make sure the Main Thing is the main thing. It's easy to say and we hear it a lot, but what does that mean? What is the MAIN THING? That's a tougher question to answer, not because we don't know the answer, but because we don't like the answer. If someone asked you, "Why are you here on this earth"...what would you say? If we answer that question honestly, from our American human minds we would say, "Success is our priority. Success financially, socially. To be comfortable and happy." Now, even if we're not brave enough to say those words out loud...what does our life answer? If someone looked at our lives, what would they see? Where is most our time and money spent? Whether we like it or not, the answer will be obvious. Are the priorities of your life the same ones in the Scriptures?

"Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment." Matthew 22:37-38. 

These are red-letter words, the words of Jesus himself. So there is no confusion and no one can dispute their validity. God himself spoke them. The first and greatest commandment is to love Him with everything you have...heart, soul and mind! And how can we love Him unless we know Him? So, to keep the MAIN THING the main thing, we have to know the main thing. We have to know the Lord... His heart, His mind, His words. When we start to prioritize our time around knowing Him, when we become intentional about the choices we make in our daily activities, when we get up an hour earlier or read His Word instead of watching an hour of t.v., or (for those of you who work) spend one lunch-break a week (or every lunch break) with Him instead of eating out with friends...that's when our lives will start to match God's first and greatest commandment.

"If your first concern is to look after yourself, you'll never find yourself. But if you forget about yourself and look to me, you'll find both yourself and me." Matthew 10:39, The MSG

So, where do we start when we want to be able to answer the "big," specific questions of life? Make sure Christ is the top priority of our life! How do we do that? Make sure our time, our actions, our lives prove that He is! If we focus on making our lives revolve around Him, then everything else will fall into place. Put God in the center of our world and it all works out. Put You in the center of your world and everything will be out-of-balance. So, if you're walking on a path you're not sure of and don't know what road to take next...just do what any traveller would do when trying to find their way: find your TRUE NORTH. Make sure your life starts with the absolute truths of God's Word!!! Maybe the big questions in life are only big questions because we have never answered to the biggest questions. Or, maybe it's harder to answer those specific questions because the answers to the fundamental questions aren't lining up with God's plan. We want God to speak to us when we want answers, but He wants to speak to us everyday, all the time...so He can tell us about His awesome heart and mind, to tell us about His overwhelming love for us, and maybe even give us a few answers to the questions we want answered. ;)