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Our priorities come from the love we seek. 

This simple statement has been a helpful grid for me to evaluate many things in my life: how I spend my money and time, which opportunities to say yes or no to, how I parent and handle friendships, and more. 

We all want love from something or someone. 

It might be a parent who determines our priorities. 

It might be a child, so our priority is to sign them up for every activity.  

It might be a boss, a teacher, or a spouse. 

It might be what someone thinks of us, so that drives.

Our priorities come from the love we seek.
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If you want to know what kind of love you are seeking, look at how you spend your time and money. That will give a very quick picture of who in your life is at the top of your list. 

Our priorities determine how we spend our time, money, and energy, who we hang out with, who we vote for, and where we live. Our priorities determine everything about our lives.

Our priorities determine everything about our lives.
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And this is important: Our priorities aren’t what we say they are, but what we actually do. 

How I spent my time and money shows my priorities. 

We may say our priorities are God when it comes to our finances, but if we aren’t generous, if we don’t give back to God, then we’re lying to ourselves. 

We talk about how community or family matters while working 70 hours a week. 

We talk about how much health or sleep matter when eating 3,000 calories a day, sleeping 6 hours a night, and living on fast food and energy drinks. 

We say our relationship with God is a priority, yet we don’t read our Bibles or spend any time listening to God’s voice. 

We say our marriage is a priority, yet we never have a date night or a getaway with our spouse. 

We say emotional and mental health is a priority, and then we never wrestle with our story or go to counseling. 

As a follower of Jesus, the love that I seek is already found in Jesus (Ephesians 1:4). 

Living in the truth of God’s love for us can be difficult to pin down. For many of us, we believe it in our heads, but struggle to get his love into our hearts. We know that our emotions can lie to us, but what do we do when we don’t feel God’s love? How do we keep that front and center in our lives to live from our true identity in Christ?

In his book, Wiser With Jesus: Overcoming the Temptations that Hinder Your Relationships, Steal Your Time, Mar Your Decision–Making and Thwart Your Purpose, Zach Eswine gives 6 ways to live our lives from the truth of God’s love for us: 

6 ways God’s love helps us to live.
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God’s love prioritizes what we set our minds on, helping us persevere (1 Corinthians 13:1-8). 

God’s love frames our prayers for each other (Ephesians 3:18-19). 

God’s love anchors our identity (Galatians 2:20). 

God’s love prompts our repentance (Romans 2:4). 

God’s love empowers our obedience (Ephesians 5:1). 

God’s love enables us to make it through no matter what (Romans 8:35-39). 

6 ways God’s love helps us to make wise decisions.
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The post How to Set the Right Priorities This Year appeared first on JoshuaReich.org.

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One of my favorite questions that John Eldredge asked in his excellent book, Resilient: Restoring Your Weary Soul in These Turbulent Times, is, “What do I need today?”

Each month when I meet with my spiritual director, he asks me, what do you need today, this week, this month? What will bring you life, restore life to the weary parts of your soul? What do your relationships need? What do you need physically, emotionally, mentally, and spiritually?

Too often, we gut through it, put our heads down, pull up our bootstraps, and get it done.

Then we crash.

But our daily practices reveal our hearts and what matters to us.

If we don’t build in practices each day to strengthen us, when the storms hit, we won’t survive them.

One of the fascinating lessons in the book of Daniel is what he did each day and how that enabled him to move through his life with strength.

We’re told in numerous places, but it’s highlighted in Daniel 6 about his prayer life. In verse 10, we’re told: that Daniel went into his house. The windows in its upstairs room opened toward Jerusalem, and three times a day he got down on his knees, prayed, and gave thanks to his God, just as he had done before.

In Daniel 6, life is getting hard for Daniel. Those around him have betrayed him, sought a way to kill him, and he does what he does every day; he prays.

Here are a few questions that rumble around my soul this week as I looked at this text:

• What do I look to or go to alleviate that pain and difficulty when life gets hard?
• How much do I pray? How often do I pray each day?
• How focused am I on the things of God versus my things?
• How focused am I on what God is doing around me versus what God is doing for me?

Eldredge said, “Resilience is built in our daily practices.”

Resilience is built in our daily practices. -John Eldredge
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Our actions each day determine where our lives end up.

We know this, yet we continue to waste a lot of time in our lives on trivial things and then wonder why we aren’t where we want to be or have the things we hoped to have.

The post What You Need To Get Through the Day appeared first on JoshuaReich.org.

I get asked by a lot of pastors or church planters how I structure my week and when I do things. I have tried systems and using an ideal week, but no one system has really fit my style the best. I’ve kind of blended things together.

While this won’t be as neat as a laid out calendar, here are principles that I use (not in a particular order):

10 ways to get more things done today.
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1. Determine what is most important. This is something that Brian Howard helped me with. Determine the top 8 things for your job and then determine how long those tasks will take and how much time you want to get give them. Stick to that.
2. Do what is most important when I’m most awake. For most people, this is the morning. Reserve this time for the most important thing on your list of 8 things. For me, this is sermon prep. It is when I need the most brain power, need to be the most alert, so I do this then. During this time, turn off social media, email, your phone and alerts.
3. Check email twice a day. Email is a destructive, helpful, necessary force. It is great but can be a time sucker. Do whatever you need to do so that you check email only twice a day, at lunch and then right before you leave. What if someone calls or stops by your office and asks, “Did you get my email?” Say, not yet, I’ll check it in an hour. You may want to put an auto response to let people know what time they can expect a response, but don’t let email control your day.
4. Take breaks every 90 minutes. This is helpful. Every 90 minutes, stop what you are doing and walk around, stretch your legs. This helps to move your blood, wake you up, and bring more creativity to the task you are doing.
5. Make meetings matter. Meetings are also necessary but can be a huge time waster. Here’s how to make meetings matter: stack them back to back so you get into meeting mode, always know the agenda of every meeting you go to (it is amazing how many meetings you could skip or could be phone calls if the agenda is clear), keep meetings to no longer than 90 minutes (at 90 minutes your brain is toast so end the meeting for your break).
6. Nothing before my sermon prep. Or your most important task. On the mornings I do sermon prep, I have no meeting before that. If I do, I’ll spend the whole sermon prep time thinking about the meeting I had. I want to wake up with a clear head and dive right into my sermon.
7. Stick to hard deadlines. Everything has a deadline and an end. My sermon needs to be done at a certain time. Make a deadline for the end of your day and get out of work on time. Nothing is worse than things being passed til next week because you mismanaged your time or getting home late because you didn’t prioritize. Think about what happens the day before you go on vacation, you get everything done. Now, do that every week.
8. Everything that is important gets put on the calendar. No matter what it is, it gets a minute on your calendar. I get asked how I motivate myself to workout, one answer is that it is the next thing on my calendar. If something is going to get done, no matter what it is, it needs to have a minute on your schedule, otherwise, it will get passed.
9. Start with bible reading. First thing in the morning, meet with Jesus. This changes the mood and feel of the day.
10. Then, spend 1 hour on reading for yourself. If you can work it into your schedule, read to grow for yourself. Read books that push your thinking on the gospel, leadership, theology, church, being a man or woman, whatever you need to grow in. Again, if you want to grow, it needs to have a space on your calendar.

10 ways to be more productive.
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The post How I Structure my Week appeared first on JoshuaReich.org.