Overcoming Busy

What Matters Most – Relationships

June 16, 2011 by Marci

Please make my friend Ali from An Ordinary Mom welcome as she shares What Matters Most.

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Yes, I needed to catch up on the laundry.
Yes, I needed to get more organized.
Yes, I needed to make sure the floors got cleaner, more often.
Yes, I needed to restock the pantry.

In the grand scheme of things, how important are those things really?

Yes, I needed to spend more time training my children, more time teaching them right things, more time intentionally parenting in the moment, and more time tying heart strings. I knew I needed to work on my relationship with my children.
Yes, I needed to extend more grace to my husband, to be more encouraging, to be more forgiving. I knew I needed to work on my relationship with my husband.
Yes, I needed to practice more friendliness with my friends.

In the grand scheme of things, relationships are pretty important.

Yes, I needed to do a lot of things, but as I sat there, struggling through yet another deep and dark valley, tears streaming down my face for the entire 45 minute drive down to church, the Lord was pressing upon my heart the ONE thing that I needed to do first, the one thing that mattered most- to know Him, to really know Him.

Knowing someone, really knowing someone, takes relationship. Without relationship, two-way relationship, we can really only ever know about someone. I could read every biography ever written about Jane Austen, I could read every book she ever wrote (a secret goal of mine), and I could read her personal letters (the few that still remain), but without a relationship with Miss Austen, spending time with her, her talking to me, me talking to her, each listening to each other, I could only ever know about her. I could never really know her.

So, how do we get to know Him?

Relationship.

So, how do we have relationship with Him?

We talk to Him, in prayer, often, and just as importantly, or dare I say- more importantly, we listen to Him.

What’s that saying? Something about how God gave us two ears and only one mouth, so we should listen twice as much as we talk. That’s some great advice, and it applies just as well to our relationship with the Lord as it does to our relationships with our spouse, our children, and our friends.

So, how do we listen to Him? Does He even speak to us? Yes, I believe He does! He speaks to us in His Word.

We can, and should, read it for ourselves. We can, and should study it for ourselves. We can, and should, hear it preached and taught by solid Bible preachers and teachers.

It’s how we really get to know Him.

In knowing Him more, more of His goodness, more of His grace, more of His mercy, in the light of our own fallen state of wretched undeservingness, we cannot help but to love Him more.

We love him, because he first loved us.
1 John 4:19 KJV

Or despisest thou the riches of his goodness and forbearance and longsuffering; not knowing that the goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance?
Romans 2:4 KJV

I sat there crying that morning, riddled with anxiety, initially stressed about the overwhelmingness of life, feeling like life was spinning out of control. I was concerned about my lack of keeping up with all of the housework. I was concerned with some behaviors and attitudes I had been seeing in my children. I was concerned about an issue that was straining my relationship with my husband. My mind was racing with what ifs.

“What if my house never gets clean?!”
“What if my children never learn to pick up after themselves or to take care of their things?”
“What if my teenager walks away from his faith after he graduates and moves away?”
“What if my girls destroy their relationships with each other with their recent cattiness?”
“What if one of our asthma girls doesn’t survive the next emergency room visit or hospital stay?”
“What if one of my children ventures out onto the highway near our house? Or gets lost in the woods out back? Or slips into the river that winds all over the place around here?”
“What if my husband and I just can’t work through these issues? What if my marriage falls apart?”

“What if?” “What if?” “What if?”

I sat there crying, my anxiety increasing with every question, and I began to realize what the most important question was.

“What if my faith isn’t strong enough to sustain me if any of of those things, or heaven forbid, all of those things, were to happen?”

I knew I had let myself grow comfortable in my walk with the Lord, and comfort has way of lending itself to complacency, even laziness. From there, it was an easy next step to let myself get distracted by a life that seems to move faster than the speed of light. It was easy to be too busy for quality quiet time. It was easy to grow a little more distant each week. Not intentionally, of course, but it was easy to stop growing spiritually.

Yes, it’s important to have good and loving relationships with our husbands. I’m working on that. Yes, it’s important to have good and nurturing relationships with our children. I’m working on that. Yes, it’s important to invest in good relationships with our friends. I’m working on that too.

But-

Without the relationship that matters most being in right order, no other relationship will ever be all that it can be, or all that it should be. Am I working on that?

ALL of our other relationships rest on, depend on, the one that matters most, our relationship with Him. I really do believe that. I cannot be the wife, mother, or friend, that I ought to be, that I desire to be, if I am not who and what I ought to be- in right relationship with Him. When I am out-of-sync with the Lord, I am out-of-sync with everyone and everything else.

I took some deep breaths, and I prayed some deep prayers. I committed again (we’re never really done committing, are we?), to work first and foremost, from that very moment, on my relationship with the One who gave Himself for me, ordinary, sinful me. My anxiety level began to fall, my inner tension began to ease. I knew it was going to be okay, that I was going to be okay. I knew that as I grew closer to Him, that I could build a foundation of faith that could not be shaken, even if my world began to fall apart all around me.

And with that foundation, all of the other important things in my life- my relationship with my husband, my relationships with my children, my relationships with my friends, my ability to get things done… All of those important things, for they are important, were viewed from a different perspective, and they no longer made me want to crawl in a whole and cry. They no longer had a choke-hold on my happiness. They no longer threatened to steal my joy.

Ladies, wives, mothers, friends, the thing I want to leave you with is this- as you are investing in the many important things in your lives this summer, and in the seasons to come, be careful not to neglect investing in the thing that matters most- your relationship with your Savior. It’s so easy to let things slide, so easy to assume all is well, but if you’re foundation is strong and solid, then it all really can be well, even when it isn’t, know what I mean?

But grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. To him be glory both now and for ever. Amen.
2 Peter 3:18 KJV

Praying for you, dear readers-
Alison (also known as Ali, an ordinary mom)

anordinarymom.com- I’m just an ordinary mom, blogging my days raising, homeschooling, and just plain loving on my 8 children, in the hopes that some of what I’ve learned from where I’ve been and where I am, might encourage you in where you are and where you may be going…

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I truly  hope you are enjoying the What Matters Most series that will run all through the month of June. You will get to hear from 12 different bloggers and get their perspectives on What Matters Most to them.

Want to share What Matters Most to you?? Overcoming Busy will be hosting a link-up on June 30th so we can all read the reason why you want to overcome busy! In the meantime. grab the “I Know What Matters Most” button on the sidebar for your site and help spread the word about the importance of focusing on What Matters Most, not the stuff that really doesn’t matter.