What Do You Value The Most?
“The happiness of your life depends upon the quality of your thoughts: therefore, guard accordingly, and take care that you entertain no notions unsuitable to virtue and reasonable nature.” ~ Marcus Aurelius
As we grow up, we find that we often put our allegiance in many things.
Our first allegiance is typically toward our family. Our moms and dads are crucial to us. They supply all of our needs and we want to do everything possible to make sure that we remain on their good side.
As we get older, our allegiance is placed with our friends. They become the most important people in our lives, oftentimes supplanting our allegiance to our family.
When we enter school — throughout grade school, high school, and college — our allegiances may shift away from friends because what becomes most important to us is a sport or an activity or a group, club, fraternity, or sorority.
At our jobs, we often place a great deal of emphasis on what we need to do to get ahead and, if possible, to become the boss. We make allegiances and break allegiances as quickly as possible in order to garner the top spot at work.
There is something we often fail to consider, however. In all of these scenarios, God should be first and foremost in our lives.
God is the one, after all, who has blessed us with our families and friends. God is the one who has given us the talents we need to excel in academics and/or sports. God is the one who has given us the intellect to achieve success in our careers.
Yet God is often the last one to be noticed or thanked because we are too busy serving our own goals, our own greed, our own avarice.
Jesus often reminded people that they cannot serve two masters. If they love one, they will despise the other. We need to be careful about how much value we place on any person or thing in our lives.
Is this world — and all that it has to offer — our master? Or, are we going to embrace God? That is a most important question to consider and one that, depending upon our answer, will set our course in life.
FAITH ACTION: Take a critical look at what you value in life. How near the top of your list is God? If He is not at the top of your list, decide what you need to do to ensure that God is the one whom you serve.