You shall have no other gods before me. (Ex. 20:3)
a young friend called Fred Smith and said, “Fred, you’re going to think I’ve gone off my rocker.”
Fred, who had been trying to mentor the young man, said, “Why?”
“I just liquidated my investments.”
Surprised, Fred asked, “Do you know something about the stock market I don’t—like, a crash?”
The young man admitted he did not. Fred asked him whether he was losing money in the market. He said he was actually making money. So, of course, the obvious question: Why did he take such drastic action?
He told Fred, “I’m sick and tired of grabbing The Wall Street Journal first thing every morning. That is not the object of my life.” He went on to describe how he was dissatisfied with the kind of person he was becoming.
“I’m becoming too involved in my investments. So I liquidated them today.”
Fred responded, “You didn’t do a silly thing. You simply looked at your priority list and took action. You did well.”
In fact, the young man took a major step toward getting his priorities straight. One of the things that the Ten Commandments address is: Who will be first in your life? That’s a priority question.
To be fulfilled, to be right with God, to set the correct course for life, we must put God first. No person or thing must come before him.
Seek first God’s kingdom and his righteousness.
Ron McClung lives in Fishers, Indiana, with his wife Carol. He has written his weekly column, Positive Perspective, for more than thirty years.
© 2020 Wesleyan Publishing House. Reprinted from Light from the Word. Used by permission.
Scriptures taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®.
