Priorities

The last couple of weeks I have had quite a few busy evenings mainly church planning meetings. We have also started an extension which is very exciting but also quite time and energy consuming as there’s lots of decisions to make. Its not too chaotic yet as its all outside so far but another plate to spin none the less. Tim and I try to have a date night once a week though sometimes we lapse and have to give ourselves a nudge. Anyway we had planned a date night but when it came to it I was just too exhausted to do anything other than collapse on the sofa. This left Tim feeling at the bottom of the pile when it came to my priority list.

It could be easy to get defensive and say well I have organised a birthday party, planned all the meals, sorted the nursery bill, done the majority of the school runs etc. etc. but that doesn’t help him feel any more loved or valued or help our relationship get stronger.

I was reminded by a friend this week about the BIOY (Bible in one year) day where Nicky Gumble writes about priorities. He says the order should be first of all God, then spouse, children, job and finally ministry. Its really easy to get the order wrong but that has a knock on effect. If your relationship with God isn’t strong you’re more likely to not be able to strengthen your other relationships and tend to make unwise choices. If your relationship with your spouse isn't strong then it affects your children and most other things. So I’m really wanting to correct my priority list!

Marriage is so powerful when its working as its meant to – a metaphor of Christ and the church! Its also really difficult, impossible even to reach this standard. Normally for us it’s a lack of or a mis communication or taking each other for granted or a lack of encouragement or affection that leads to problems. We’ve found a few resources helpful over the years which I’ll share with you…

1. The five love languages

2. The marriage course

3. Date night in a box

Crazy cool family also talk about how through marriage you are modelling to your children how a relationship works so I really want to model it well!

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