As I so often write, we all have a calling on our lives. It might not be a specific project or career path, but all of us are called to live our lives worthy of Yeshua, following in His footsteps and being representatives of who He is. How do we do this? Many of you might say that by serving others over ourselves, we are walking in Yeshua’s selfless love, and you’d be correct; however, there comes a time when we need to prioritize ourselves first… Hear me out.
During Yeshua’s time on earth, He was EXTREMELY intentional about how He spent His time. Yeshua knew He didn’t have long among us, yet we often read how He would leave the crowds to be alone with the Father. Yeshua didn’t allow others to hijack His time or take Him away from the mission He’d been sent to do. In the same way, we need to be firm in the boundaries we set to serve others, so we can also focus on what God’s calling us to do! As Carey Nieuwhof so elegantly writes in his book, At Your Best, “Nobody will ever ask you to accomplish your top priorities. They will only ask you to accomplish theirs.”
Our time is precious, so we need to be aware of how much we’re allowing others to hijack. Each of us is worthy of the gifts God has bestowed upon us, but until we untie the pretty bows and take out what’s inside, we’ll miss the fullness of what God wants to do in our lives. Our greatest callings in life are to glorify God and serve others, but we need to stop allowing people to excel in their callings on our backs while our gifts lay unopened!
It’s been a lesson-packed month of learning that I am worthy of prioritizing my time and setting boundaries so others are not stealing me from what I know God has called me to do. I have never been more certain of where my focus needs to be. The more I prioritize my editing, the more protective I am over my schedule. And, do you know what? I’ve watched my productivity increase because of this! At first, it was a difficult transition, full of guilt for putting my work before others; however, as I was reading Roseanna M. White’s upcoming novel, Worthy of Legend, I felt the Lord encourage me that my work is just as worthy and important as others!
The same goes for you! Do you know your worth? Are you ready to open the gift God has given you and use it? We are His workmanship, and He loves us so much. Through Him, we are made worthy, and by living a life worthy of the Lord, we will walk in the light of redemption.
“For this reason, since the day we heard about you, we have not stopped praying for you. We continually ask God to fill you with the knowledge of his will through all the wisdom and understanding that the Spirit gives, so that you may live a life worthy of the Lord and please him in every way: bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God, being strengthened with all power according to his glorious might so that you may have great endurance and patience, and giving joyful thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of his holy people in the kingdom of light. For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.” ~ Colossians 1:9-14
