This story is about just one person: You!

How can I write a story about you? Because you and I have much more in common than you think!

Take, for example, how hard you try to separate home and work. It doesn’t really work, does it?

At your workplace you are faced with countless challenges and decisions. Time seems to fly by so fast that at the end of your day, you often wonder if you have really accomplished anything.

You come back home exhausted, and although you try to relax and enjoy your family, your thoughts are riveted miles away, back at work. Even while unwinding in front of the TV, thoughts keep on popping up about priority lists at work. Oh, and some of the priority lists at home manage to work their way in, too! You get into bed feeling beaten, but sleep doesn’t come easily. You toss and turn, and your spouse wonders if you have changed into a Mexican jumping bean!

When sleep finally comes, you dream…about work! You wake up at half-past three, sweating profusely, as you suddenly remember something important you forgot to do. You get up and try to relax by reading a book. This should distract you some, and you get back into bed. Responsibilities at work keep on haunting you however, and these are now accompanied by responsibilities at home that must be attended to by the end of the week. You wake up tired to face another day of the same horrifying ritual.

Sounds familiar?

Now imagine with me that for some insane reason you are arrested and condemned to 5 years of prison. You are innocent. You know it, but no one believes you, except hopefully your spouse and your kids. Will your priorities still be focused on you to-do list at work? Absolutely not! All of a sudden the focus shifts dramatically. Your priority now is to prove your innocence, and your dreams centre on the day you will be released. If anyone would talk to you about your former job, you would look at it as something from the distant past, far gone from your life.

Then another dramatic change happens in your life. Someone stabs you viciously several times. A trauma unit rushes you to the hospital. Surgeons immediately perform their duties in order to save your life. The surgery is a success, but your life is still at stake. Will you or won’t you make it? No one really knows.

As you are trying to recuperate, your thoughts are miles away from those you had in prison, and light years away from what used to be your main preoccupations.

Isn’t it amazing how a change in your life can switch your priorities so drastically? One must wonder if we have set our priorities correctly!

When you finally face Jesus, what will your thoughts be concerning these priorities you had in life? Were they well placed? Were they Kingdom priorities? Did they give honor to the One who died for you?

“Man is destined to die once, and after that to face judgment…” (Heb 9:27 NIV)

“When you say, ‘The altar of GOD is not important anymore; worship of GOD is no longer a priority,’ that’s defiling.” (Mal 1:7 The Message)

May your priorities be correct so that you will enjoy real living in Jesus!

“I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.” (John 10:10 NIV)

Rob Chaffart