What’s Your Priority?

This month we continue looking at building and maintaining a healthy, connected marriage relationship when raising a family as we examine the topic of priorities.

One of the most common enemies of marital harmony—especially when we are parents—is misaligned priorities. It’s so easy to spend so much time and energy raising our kids that we don’t even notice we are neglecting our relationship with our spouse. It’s so easy to get wrapped up in the day-to-day routines of parenting—especially when we have infants—that we don’t notice anything’s wrong until there’s a major blowout.

Your spouse may have suggested that you spend more time together and that they are feeling neglected, but the demands of parenting or work compel you to minimize their concerns or dismiss them altogether. After all, your kids are dependent on you. They need your love and attention. You don’t want them to feel unloved or second best. But spouses have the same core connection needs that kids do. But because we are adults, we tend to take our marriage relationship for granted and pour most of our time and energy into our kids.

“We prove the value we attach to things by the time we devote to them.”

This quote from Andrew Murray gives us an objective way to measure where our priorities are and what we really value. But being honest with yourself and realizing what you value is only the first step. Once you know what you value, you have a choice to make. Do you continue living according to those values, or do you align your life and priorities with what God says is important according to His Word, the Bible?

Let’s look at what the Bible says our priorities should be…

• Our relationship with God
• Our relationship with our spouse
• Our relationship with our children
• Our relationship with our parents
• Our relationship with other believers (the Church)
• Our relationship with the world (outreach)

Our relationship with God

So, why should God be our first priority when discussing marital harmony? Afterall, our problems are with our spouse, not God, right? Well, first of all, God commands that we love Him with all our heart, soul, and strength, and that we worship and serve Him ONLY. He is GOD and we are NOT. And that’s really the ONLY reason we need to make God our top priority. But there’s also ANOTHER reason…

“Our marriages are not rooted in romance, they are rooted in worship.”

God created us to be worshipers. Worship is first your identity before it is ever your activity. You ARE a worshiper. Everything you think, desire, choose, do, or say is shaped by worship. Being a worshiper means you attach your identity, your meaning and purpose, and your inner sense of well-being to SOMETHING. If it’s not God, it will be other people and things.

That’s where things can get a bit wacked and out of balance. We can place so much importance on our spouse, our children, or even our possessions, that they replace God as our top priority. You may not set up a shrine and bow down to them, but nevertheless, they can become idols that come between you and God. How do you know if something or someone is becoming, or has become, an idol in your life? Anyone or anything that comes between you and God can become an idol.

“The desire for even a good thing becomes a bad thing, when it becomes a ruling thing.”

There is only one King on the throne. There is only one ruler and Lord of our lives. Is it wrong to love our spouse? Of course not, the Bible commands us to. Is it wrong to love our children? Of course not, the Bible gives us instruction on how we can do that. But when our relationship with our spouse and children takes priority over our love and devotion for God, we have set them up as idols.

Our relationship with our spouse

After our relationship with God, if you are married, your spouse comes next in the order of priorities. From the very beginning God created marriage as a loyal friendship between one man and one woman. It was not good for man to be alone so God created woman as a helper for Adam. Man and woman were to be equal, complimentary companions for each other. So at the core of marriage is a deep, fulfilling friendship. But this is no ordinary friendship. It is a covenant relationship designed to last a lifetime. And within this covenant relationship God designed sexual expression to help married couples build intimacy. And that covenant relationship and sexual intimacy provides the firmest foundation for building a family. That same covenant relationship mirrors God’s covenant relationship with His people—our marriages were designed to preach the Gospel to a watching world.

So, this marriage relationship is sacred and special and your spouse deserves your devotion, love, and affection second only to God your Father, and Jesus Christ your Lord and Savior. In fact, marriage is so special to God that he gives many instructions in the Bible regarding the husband and wife relationship so that they will flourish together. However, the reality is that there can be many things competing for the attention, affection, and loyalty of our spouse—our career, our parents, leisure activities, ministry, friends, and perhaps most of all, our children.

Our relationship with our Children

If husbands and wives are second only to God in our priorities, it stands to reason that the result of the marriage relationship—our children—should be the next priority. Our responsibility and priority as parents is to nurture, protect, train, instruct, and discipline our children to become the next generation of those who love the Lord with all their hearts.

That doesn’t mean we do that at the expense of our marriage relationship. Our kids will learn so many things from watching us and from our instruction and training—but mostly from watching us. What will you be teaching your kids about priorities as they observe your life? Will they know there are limits and boundaries to what they can say and do, or will they think they are the most important people in the family?

“Children are probably the greatest threat to creating a priority imbalance in your marriage and family.”

Setting priorities in the family from an early age on will set healthy expectations that your kids will come to accept if they are consistently followed and enforced.

I believe the time to train your children about obeying authority and proper boundaries is as soon as they seem to understand it. If you have kids older than 3 you probably already know it happens sooner than you might expect. You will experience a lot less stress and arguments with your spouse and experience greater marital harmony if your kids are properly trained to obey your authority and observe the healthy boundaries you set for the family.

Keeping a connected, intimate marriage relationship while raising a family can be challenging—and at times seem impossible. Establishing proper biblical priorities for yourself—and within the family—will help you realize that goal.

For those of you in the Colorado Springs area, Sharon and I will be leading a 5-week class called, “Marital Harmony in Parenting” on Thursday’s 6:15 pm to 8:15 pm starting October 20th. Childcare is provided. You need to register on the Mountain Springs Church app HERE. Space is limited.