Priorities - How to master your To-Do list and eliminate anxiety.

I have a complicated productivity system that seems to be ever evolving and constantly in flux as I learn about new apps, new techniques, new processes to streamline my workflow and become more efficient. Currently its an amalgamation of bullet journaling, Todoist, Sunsama, and Notion. Not to mention Outlook, Outlook Calendar, Obsidian, Excel, Adobe, One-Drive, and a few other industry specific programs - Paskr, Foundation, and Fieldwire. It's really not that overwhelming in person, but writing it all out sure does make it seem like a herculean amount of information to corral to just keep my action items in a semi constant state of being checked off.

In today's digital world of constant bombardment with information and attention seeking emails and texts, we are often having to adjust, re-think, upend and flip our schedules and to-do lists as we triage the information coming at us, to make sure the most important thing surfaces to the top of the list and garners the majority of our attention and energy. I analogized this juggling act to my wife as a game of Skee-ball. If you aren't familiar, you have 5 balls that you have to roll up this ramp, and aim them at progressively smaller circles. So the ball rolls up the ramp, flies through the air, and if you aimed right, and had enough force, will land in the hole you were shooting for and you get points.. then the balls come rolling back down the shoot and you do it all over again. My days seem to be a constant in-feed of Skee-ball balls and I'm just sending them down range, knowing they will return and need to be dealt with again. As soon as I get all 5 balls moving towards their target, its like someone adds 3 more balls in a different color that need to be launched at a different target with a different amount of force. At any one time, I may have 20-30 balls I'm slamming down this Skee-ball ramp. Eventually those balls have had enough and just go on their way, but more balls are assuredly about to drop into the game. Its an exhilarating, ever changing, sometimes exhausting job of a construction project manager.

The other day I was thinking It had been a rather successful day of construction Skee-ball, but then I thought, I wonder if Jesus considered my day successful? Then I wondered how would Jesus actually define success? What did Jesus have to say about priorities? Am I living a life that my culture and co-workers deem successful, but my Creator finds wanting?

Lets flesh it out.

So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. (Matthew 6:31-33)

In Matthew 6:31-33 Jesus sets out what our priority should be. He points out how the pagans or Gentiles, are always seeking after what they are going to be eating, or drinking or wearing. The Greek word translated as "run after" here, or sometimes “seek” in other translations, is "epizēteō" and can also be translated as to inquire for, seek for, search for, seek diligently, to wish for, crave, to demand, clamor for. Jesus says that non-believers waste their lives wishing, craving, searching for what they are going to impress one another with: their "treasure" that they will point to as evidence of their success. In Matthew 6:19-21 Jesus condemns this mindset:

“Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moths and vermin destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moths and vermin do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. (Matthew 6:19-21)

Focusing on amassing a pantry full of the finest foods and a closet full of the newest brands is a fools errand. You may get what you were after, but as my Dad likes to say, "You can't take it with you". Jesus agreed. His instruction is to be a minimalist with the goods the world offers, but to store up treasure in Heaven. His instruction is not to prioritize self, but prioritize God. **In verse 33 he gives us the key to our To-Do list as well as the remedy to anxiety.**

But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. (Matthew 6:33)

Here Jesus uses a different word for seek.. "zēteō". This is a seek in order to find, by thinking meditation, reasoning, to inquire into. The pagans seek with stress, sweat, and eagerness after their worldly treasures that evaporate as quickly as they do, but Jesus instructs the believer to seek with a hunger, a desire, and a worshiping spirit after two things. His Kingdom (basileia) and His Righteousness (dikaiosynē). The Greek word Jesus uses for "Kingdom" here is basileia, which means to come under the rule of God. The Greek word used for "Righteousness" is dikaiosynē which means a pattern of life in conformity with God's will. The non believer is straining to gain independence and the believer is learning to live in dependence.

The stress and anxiety we all feel is because we are trying to accomplish something that has a due date, or a budget, or a subsequent dependency with the wrong intention. "If I don't get this done, I wont be able to X-Y-Z". Our intentions are not in alignment with coming under the rule of God or patterning our life to align with his will. The anxiety is a result of the task or action occupying our mind being misaligned with our calling. Anxiety is the physical manifestation of a spiritual prioritization problem. Anxiety is when we put out trust in ourselves to source our needs, and not putting our trust in God to provide them. Anxiety is the outward expression of our lack of faith. Jesus is speaking to the crowd saying guys, you are trying to store up treasures here on earth with all this effort, but the treasures that you will enjoy for eternity are the ones you store up in Heaven (through [[M007 - Good Works|good works]] - 1 Cor 3:10-15). You all are so anxious about what you are going to eat and drink and wear.. God knows you need all this, seek after Him and he will give you everything you need! You all have your priorities reversed! When we are properly aligned with how we were created to live, we dont need to have anxiety about the necessities - we can trust God to provide them and watch him prune and perfect our faith has he fulfills his promise to provide for us what we need. Now this all sounds good, but its much harder in actual practice. I don’t want to give the impression that I have this all figured out. I know the root cause of my anxiety, yet I still deal with it on the regular. In fact, I don’t think I know anyone who doesn’t deal with it on some level, but there is a better way. There is a promise that we don’t need to have it. The reminder we get from Michel de Montaigne is the tragic human experience that so many non-believers and believers alike find themselves wallowing in - "My life has been filled with terrible misfortune; most of which never happened."

Jesus says "where your treasure is, there your heart will be also". He is entreating us to not be anxious (vs 25, vs 31, vs 34), to stop striving, sweating, and stressing after these things that eventually end up as rusted out moth food, but rather to make coming under the rule of God and the shaping our lives to be in alignment with God's will the 1st priority of our affections. Of all the things we long after, of all the things our heart yearns for, Christ promises that if our top spot is occupied by learning, growing, and deepening our understanding what it is to be a servant of the King and by looking for ways to align our life mission with God's life mission for us, then everything else falls into place, and God will meet our every need.

Notice though, it's not an instruction to replace the items on your formal to-do list, its a new way to view those items, to construct that list. Jesus says seek 1st, or prioritize, living under God's rule and living out God's will - then all the things you need are added to you. The framework that we use to schedule our day to day lives has one filter - am I doing these things to live under God's rule and live out his will for me? If the answer is no, you are on a fast track to an anxiety ridden game of skee-ball. Jesus says there is one priority, "seek 1st". He doesnt say then, once you have sought that out, seek second and seek third.. Its a refreshing reminder that the Christian is called to live a life of trusting faith in the providence of our Creator, who has promised to care for us and provide what we need. You don't have a laundry list to check off before God agrees to step in and provide for you, you have one thing to do.

This all boils down to a heart issue. The desires that the pagans "run after" as it says in the NIV, are their affections, the things they long for. They were chasing after satisfaction and fulfillment through material possessions and physical security. Jesus is saying that the abundant life he offers (John 10:10) is about an anxiety shedding journey into discovering who you were created to be. It begins with casting off the worries of this world, the "lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the boastful pride of life" as John says in 1 John 2:16, and realizing that compared to knowing Christ Jesus, all those things are worthless (Phil 3:8). However, the promise is that by resting and trusting in God through putting Him first, that God will supply all your physical needs for you. This is not the prosperity gospel, this is the promise of the gospel. You will have the thing of most value already, so nothing could be given to you by God that would be more valuable to you than God. When you have your proper priority in place, then the things the world tells you are necessary for success have their glamour stripped away, the "red has worn off the candy" as Dad says (that's two Chip Glover quotes so far if you are keeping score at home).

Fleshed Out

Mastering your to-do list and eliminating anxiety is all about corrected aim and purified purpose. When you become a believer, you are invited into the abundant life Jesus wants you to live, which means you stop "running after" the materialistic things for fulfillment and satisfaction and turn to God. You structure your life to thrive under God's rule (your aim), and make decisions as you live out His will for your life (your purpose). This is what it means to seek first His kingdom and His righteousness. This is what success, or achieving your aim and purpose, is through the teaching of Jesus.

You can continue on and live your life congruent with what your coworkers and the culture around you expects; Putting self first, and making sure you take care of what you need to in order to secure that next achievement. If you want to live a life that the Creator finds successful, you do the same thing, but with a corrected aim and a purified purpose. Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.

Don’t miss the fact that just as the non-believers are running after things, so is God. He is running after you, He is asking you to believe in the death, burial, and resurrection of his son as payment for the sins you and I have committed and could never pay for ourselves. He is inviting you to seek out what it means to live under his rule, and how to live out his will for your redeemed life.

Now, brothers and sisters, I want to remind you of the gospel I preached to you, which you received and on which you have taken your stand. By this gospel you are saved, if you hold firmly to the word I preached to you. Otherwise, you have believed in vain. For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, (1 Corinthians 15:1-4