634 The First Place

At this moment, God knows exactly what your needs are for today and all of your tomorrows. He knows and he cares. His care causes him to spring into action for you. Whatever it is you’ve been worried about, God has already made a way right through. How do you live in this divine provision? How do you dwell in the blessing of the Almighty? It’s a matter of priority. What gets first place in your life? Who receives your best efforts? Where does the first hour of your day go? You have a “go to” whether you know it or not. The moment things go wrong, the instant there is a threat, you turn somewhere. Where is that? In the moment you see beauty, the moment you are overwhelmed with awe, without your conscious awareness you go to the somewhere. Where is that? Did you know God wants to be that in your life? He wants to be your “go to”. He wants the first hour of your day. He wants your best efforts. He wants first place in your life. And here’s why … you were created to need him as your priority. When anything or anyone else becomes your priority, you’re living out of alignment with your design and you will never reach your full potential. Jesus tells us in Matthew 6 that God intimately knows all of our needs and will provide for them. He will provide for every detail of your life with great care and give the ultimate in provision in response to something you do. What is it you must do? Do you know? How do you receive God’s best in your life? Jesus says “your heavenly Father already knows perfectly well (what) you need”, then in 6:33 he says “and he will give (it) to you IF YOU give him first place in your life and live as he wants you to.” Maybe you’ve always heard this scripture as “seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you”, but you weren’t sure how to seek ye the kingdom of God and his righteousness. I wasn’t sure either, so I started reading other translations. Here’s what I discovered … Well, it simply means give him first place in your life and live as he wants you to. For me, I’ve found I give God first place in my life by giving him my first hour of the day. He gets the best of me from the beginning of my day. Since I began doing this, my world has radically changed. Yes, RADICALLY. Have things magically fallen into place and been blissfully perfect? No. In the past year I’m a total Daddy’s girl who lost her Daddy, and a Mama who’s youngest daughter is living the life of the prodigal on a dangerous path totally away from her family. I’ve had multiple things fall apart, countless things go epicly wrong, and piles of disappointments. Jesus never promised putting him first would make things easy. He never promised following him would fix all our problems. He promised in this world we would have problems, but he has overcome every single one of those problems. So through the problems, hearthaches, losses, and crapfest of setbacks, let me tell you the one steady I’ve found … I’ve found PEACE. Peace when it straight up didn’t make sense to have peace. Restful nights when I should have been up worrying the entire night. Calm in the middle of the storm. And you can find the same. I can’t tell you how to make your storm calm down, but I can tell you how to calm down in the middle of the storm … put God first. This means give him your best, dedicate the first part of your day solely to him, allow him to become your “go to”. Your go to when things go wrong, as well as your go to when things go right. God, I can’t believe this mess and I need your help to find my way out of it. God, I can’t believe the beauty my eyes behold and I thank you for it.