Confessions of a Peace Lover...

If you follow this blog you'll remember that last week we looked at the lesson of the "Walnut and Rice Jar" and how it applied to my kid's lives. This week I've been using the practical application of determining my priorities (walnuts) and seeing if I am living out what I say is most important to me, or if I'm allowing the other stuff of life (rice) to distract me and fill my minutes, hours, and days (my jar) with non-essentials.

I thought it would be so easy, I mean how hard can it be to prioritize your priorities? But taking a good hard look at my "walnuts" this week has been rather stretching, and stretching is not always easy! Just as in physical stretching, this spiritual stretching stuff has left me a bit tender in spots.

I mean, I know that I know that I know that my top three priorities ARE, without a doubt, God, my hubby, and my family. And yet I have had to ask myself "are they the top three in terms of time spent in intentional relationship?" Are those "walnuts" getting into my "jar", each and every day?

And if not, why not?

What could possibly be so important to distract me from my top priorities? Another walnut/priority? Or could it be rice/the stuff of life?

And so, this week, the challenge for me has been to name - really name, I mean literally take a marker and write the NAME of the priority on a walnut - the important stuff of life. And then to, again literally, pick up the walnut and put it in my jar when, and if, I actually do invest my minutes, my hours, my self, in and with the name on the walnut.

And I haven't even gotten to the rice!

Three of my walnuts I mentioned before, time spent with God, time spent with my husband, and time spent with my children. But I really need to define those priorities a little better.

It is not just time spent WITH, but time spent IN relationship/communication with God (in reading His word, and by prayer and quiet, meditative time); time spent IN relationship/communication with my husband (sleeping together in the same room does not count as communication!); time spent IN relationship/communication with my kids (being in the same house is time spent, but, honestly, that is not communication =).

Are you recognizing the point I recognized? Sometimes we think just seeing someone is time well spent - put a checkmark by that priority - but seeing a face does not grow a relationship.

Communication, intentional communication, is what grows us relationally, with God and with those we say mean the very most to us. It's the stuff those walnuts are made of!

And at the end of the day, at the end of our life, it's relationships that will matter most.

The other "walnuts" on my list aren't "bad", work, reading, friends, exercise, eating right, hobbies, ministry, all are priorities for me that help to keep me well-grounded, well-balanced, and healthy. But it's the walnuts that involve relationships with those I hold dear that really matter the most.

So yes, it's okay to have a walnut that reads "lunch with a friend", and yet it's not ok to fill my jar with those lunch-walnuts if my walnuts that read "God", "hubby", "family" are not getting placed in my jar as well. It's okay to have a job-walnut; it's not okay to fill my jar with that particular walnut to the point that the other "walnuts" in my life don't find their way into the jar.

It's great to read, it's important to study God's word, it's great to attend group studies, to serve in ministry, to have hobbies and go to ballgames and concerts and any other number of things that might be on my list of priorities - my walnuts - but the whole visual of the walnuts being put into the jar, seeing how I am spending my time, has been an important reminder to me about the need for balance, discernment, and being intentional about what is most important.

Relationship with my Heavenly Father, intentional relationship, will help me find the balance, help me discern the walnuts from the rice, and help me be intentional about what is most important.

So there you have it, I've named the first and most important walnut for each and every one of us. If we can, if we will, place the God-walnut in our jar FIRST each and every day, I have a feeling the rest of the walnuts will fit even better!

Next week I think I'll look at the nice fluffy rice that's been stealing some space from those all important walnuts!

And truly, it will be "confessions" of a peace lover! (I am nervous already!)

Until then..

Beth