Written by Paul J Bucknell on August, 26, 2021
A Reexamination of Setting Priorities
The priorities we hold significantly impact the decisions we make.
Christians are often confused about how to set priorities. Which decisions need to be made before others? We need to rethink how we set priorities and involve God, who provides faith to face numerous demands simultaneously. We can trust God for timely and correct solutions.
Behind this understanding is confidence in God’s wisdom. The Lord lives in us. Through meditation on His Word, God’s people can attentively attend to the issues that arise around them. They are not to worry but trust God as they deal with the situations.
An inadequate faith causes us to avoid or give up and put off facing the issues that aren’t easily resolved or that we don’t like. An undesirable level of stress builds up from putting off decisions, creating last-minute decisions and neglect. Sometimes this leads to noninvolvement to the consternation of those involved.
The 1,2,3, List Model
Many Christians have no conscious way to set priorities. They typically get stressed as they face, what they feel, is a heaped-up pile of unpleasant decisions.
Some have found a way of helping them to handle the conflicts of values and decisions—the List Model. Each area of life is listed by its level of importance. For example, (1) God; (2) Family; (3) Ministry, etc.
This means of resolving priority conflicts, however, does not work. It can cause neglect in one or more areas. I’ve seen those who have put ministry first only later to regret it due to family pressures. Later, he switched by putting family first and then faced, as a pastor, much criticism from the congregation. Consistency in this pattern will bring problems because godly living requires a Spirit-led, biblically-regulated way of approaching life—not the priority list model.
I have formerly written on this topic, differentiating the typical List model from my suggested Pie model. The List model attempts to resolve the stress points by pre-identifying the highest priorities, but this results in the formation of other stress points, one being allowing our decisions to outweigh the Holy Spirit’s leading.
The Pie Model
The Pie model takes in life’s complications for people to face many difficult decisions simultaneously. These decisions often seem to be in conflict, swamping our ability to handle them properly. This biblical model places the Lord at the center of our lives. This means that we primarily seek His will for our lives.
The sectioned parts—pieces of the pie—consist of our life responsibilities held equally important. Instead of observing a hierarchal list of priorities (e.g., family comes before ministry), the Pie model welcomes each decision and its demand on our time, bringing them in earnest before the Lord in prayer.
As Master of our lives, we trust the Father best knows how to deal with these demanding situations (Romans 8:28; 1 Peter 1:5-7). God is intimately involved in our lives, so we are not afraid of facing many issues, trusting the Father to work it out.
This approach doesn’t exclude the possibility of us making a mistake by taking on too many responsibilities. Sometimes, we do this, but we are open to seeing how the Lord will help us handle the situation we find ourselves.
Faith’s Important Role
In this article, I want to expand our appreciation of the pie model by identifying faith’s role in the decision-making process.
If we look at Jesus’ life, we see many examples of how He trusted God for whatever came up in His life. In one day, Jesus might have faced: faithless disciples, challenging healings, and argumentative religious enemies.
God wants to boost our faith and provide the needed discernment to prioritize the Father’s will for us. Instead of shunning some important decisions (that lie lower on the priority “list”), or demanding God answer us in one or more ways, we openly mention our inability to properly resolve the issues in a God-honoring manner on our own.
This humbling of the soul often includes acknowledging that we do not know enough, do not have the physical ability, do not have the right connections, and do not have sufficient funds. Instead of worrying, we should delight in this opportunity to see how God will work it out.
“6 Therefore humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you at the proper time, 7 casting all your anxiety on Him, because He cares for you” (1 Peter 5:6-7).
Right now, in my own life, it looks like two meetings that I have arranged will not be attended—maybe because of the pandemic, maybe a blend of reasons. Instead of worrying, however, I can praise God, and watch how He will help and lead. Meanwhile, I take the steps He leads me to. I follow the Lord’s leadings, not my feelings.
God designs these providential situations to train us further to trust Him more deeply and to draw us closer to Himself.
As we trust the Lord, we see how He handles things differently, even sprinkling miracles into our situation to respond to our requests made in faith, giving thanks to Him.
We incline to handle on our own what we face in our lives, worrying when we can’t—but this is an unbiblical approach. People were never made to operate separately from the Lord, even in the easily handled areas of life. By recognizing our areas and times of weakness and bringing those needs in prayers of intercession before the Lord, we learn to trust Him to resolve the situation promptly.
With the old List model, we end up feeling like failures, whether it’s a student who can’t handle his workload, a colleague who is overwhelmed by the boss’ demands, or just not finding adequate time in the day. The opposite is true. The mature recognize that we were never designed to handle life on our own; we need Christ to fill and guide us so that we can unitedly weave through the challenges and temptations of life with the Lord.
An Example of Handling Perplexity
Let me address a situation that pastors regularly face—always busy and never have enough time. There is always an unlimited number of important things to do. We can always visit that person or make this phone call. Even leadership meetings tend to create more workload! So here is the context of an ongoing series of decision-making conflicts.
On a Sunday morning, a pastor’s wife feels ill. Red flags go up all over. Who is going to handle their children? Do they go to church? What about the wife’s responsibility in the nursery? The list goes on until we panic. Panic, in this case, would be a sin because it shows that we have not leaned on the God of peace (Phil 4:8-9).
Those following the List model tend to panic in these situations because, deep down, they do not believe that God has prearranged a solution. They resort to their priority List model, which either states ministry above family or family above ministry. From there, they make difficult and often awkward decisions. I find Satan often uses such mistaken decisions to sow seeds of doubt in the congregation regarding their pastor.
A Better Way
However, The Pie model builds on the truth that our providential Father has already cared for this overwhelming predicament. This is where our faith comes in. We are relying on God’s promises and Word. We know the Lord will not test us beyond our strength but always provides a way out.
“No temptation has overtaken you but such as is common to man; and God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will provide the way of escape also, so that you will be able to endure it” (1 Cor 10:13).
We believe the Lord wants us to succeed by always caring for our lives (Mat 28:20).
The Lord carefully in the background prepares us for harder testing times by first providing easier ones. A father might permit his son climb a tree only so high but later decides to let him tackle a more difficult tree or go higher in the same tree. This is all part of the training process. Even the problematic setting we now face will better prepare us for the harder ones to come.
Mind you, those who demand God to help them in such a way will not like any testing time. They immaturely conclude that difficult situations prove God is not near, but the truth is different for God’s people.
Summarizing
The List model puts emphasis not only on our finances and decision-making skills but also on our abilities to handle multiple crises at once. The Pie model points us to the Lord and His providential wisdom and almighty power to work “all things out for them who love God and are called to His purpose (Rom 8:28).
Prioritizing family over the ministry, for example, might sound noble to those who have seen how pastors have ruined their families by neglect. I understand their resolve to value their family above other things. On the other hand, other pastors/elders gloat about prioritizing serving others over their families. This perspective is a skewed belief that one is more important than another. It is inconsistent with the scriptural teachings, though it often is presented as super-spiritual. Elders are right when they question the pastor’s vigorous attention to pastoral duties and not taking a vacation with his family.
At the core of the Pie model is God’s will. This is all that matters for the believer. We seek the Father’s will and trust Him for the wisdom, wealth, providential help, etc., to help us carry out our part. God not only plans the end result but works with us to make us successful in carrying out His work for His glory.
Jesus told his disciples that a donkey would be in a specific place (Mat 21:1-4). Of course, this was a prophecy with redemptive significance, but this confidence in His Father shows how God commonly works out His marvelous will in our lives—even if it requires a miracle.
Learn to work with Jesus’ Spirit, who lives in us. This is living by the power of the resurrected Christ in us, empowering us to do His will.
Discussion Questions on Prioritizing
- What is the List model?
- What trouble comes from the List Model? Give an example.
- What is the Pie Model?
- Read the linked article if you haven’t. Read here.
- How do the two methods of making decisions differ?
- Give examples that show how Jesus used the Pie Model?
- Why does the author state faith is essential to respond to the Lord for these difficult situations rightly?
- How does the author suggest for you to respond to overwhelming situations?
- How do you respond? Apply this truth to your next opportunistic testing time!
Other Resources by Paul Bucknell on Setting Priorities
Colossians 1:10. Gaining a biblical perspective of priorities.
- Gaining a biblical perspective of priorities enables us to understand the influence of Colossians 1:10 on forming priorities.
Setting Priorities for Godly Marriages and Families by Paul J. Bucknell
- Setting Priorities for Godly Marriages and Families shares what priorities are needed to have a good marriage and how to make those priorities in order to ...
Setting Priorities for Godly Marriages and Families | 4 Defining ...
- Detecting and defining the priorities in our marriages remains to be one of the most challenging steps to improving our marriages.
Godly Priorities and Child Routines | Biblical Foundations for Freedom
- Godly Priorities and Child Routines. Good daily routines are invaluable in raising godly children, but sometimes certain routines takes second ...
Decisions: Rescheduling Life’s Priorities
- Have we made winning the race of sexual purity a priority of our lives? There are many other things to distract us from running. We could play computer games ...
Setting Priorities for Godly Marriages and Families | 6 You Can ...
- In order to change, you need to follow the advice seen in these verses. Part 6/9 in Setting Priorities for Godly Marriages and Families.
Setting Priorities for Godly Marriages and Families | 5 A Biblical ...
- Couples need to learn WHAT kind of marriage they are seeking and HOW to form priorities to gain those godly families. A Biblical Perspective: 1 Timothy ...
Setting Priorities for Godly Marriages and Families | 3 Pressures of Life
- We all face marriage pressures, but the question is what priorities do we need to set and how do we implement them so that we can have a good marriage?
Setting Priorities for Godly Marriages and Families | 7 Gaining a ...
- Examining Titus 2:4-5 and 1 Timothy 3:2-5 help us gain further needed biblical mindset to properly set our priorities in marriage.
Setting Priorities for Godly Marriages and Families | 9 A Wrong ...
- Couples need to learn WHAT kind of marriage they are seeking and HOW to form priorities to gain those godly families. A Wrong Approach to Marriages: Part 9 ...
Colossians 1:10 Living a Balanced Life
- LIVING A BALANCED LIFE Colossians 1:10. Gaining Perspective on Priorities. Paul J. Bucknell. “So that you may walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, ...
A Spiritually Balanced Life: Living a Spirit-filled life in a busy modern ...
- Many believers use the listing method to discern priorities. They find out which is most important and then make it a priority over another category.
Finding Restoration from Worries - Slide #09_11
- Lord, I affirm Your kingdom and righteousness as a priority in my life. I commit my finances to you. You care for them. I want to set everything just right.
Haggai: Rebuilding the Temple: Commentary and Notes: Intro and ...
- What priorities in our lives have caused us to give less than we ought to God’s ... The spiritual principle then is that we should always prioritize God’s …
Philippians 4:8-9: The God of Peace– a Life Commentary –
- Peace is goal with the Lord, making His priorities your priorities. The things you have learned and received and heard and seen in me, practice these things ...
