Priorities Can Make the Difference Between Striving and Abiding
Tom Lamb • August 2, 2025
Priorities Can Make the Difference Between Striving and Abiding
To have priority means that something must be dealt with or done first. A priority ranks above or is more important than something else.
I like to do a practice called brain dump or mind mapping. It involves writing everything that you must do, need to do, or even think you might do someday, down on paper and get it all in front of you in black and white.
The next step is to prioritize. You start ranking in order of importance and pick an item to be number one, two, three, etc. Before I get too far down the list, I start seeing more items that are top priority. So now I have 1, 1a, 1b… Have you ever been there?
Can you really have more than one priority?
I’d submit that many of us live our lives, professionally, personally, and spiritually having multiple first priorities. This creates stress and anxiety and leads to a life of striving to get everything done. It leaves us with a sense of failure when we miss something.
Soon we get to the mindset of:
“Nothing in my life is going right.”“Everything I touch goes wrong!”“I’m such a failure!”
Sound familiar?
Tony Evans is masterful at using illustrations and this is one of his best.
A man goes to the doctor with the complaint that his whole body, from head to toe, hurts. The doctor seems skeptical, but the man insists that any place he touches causes him pain.The doctor asks him to touch his forehead. He does and cries out in pain.Touch your elbow, he does, and cries out in pain.The same thing happens with his knee and toe.The doctor says, “I’ve found the problem; you have a dislocated finger!”
Hear this:
One thing in your life may be causing most of your issues.
That one thing: God is not first in your life.
But seek first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness, and all these things will be provided for you. – Matthew 6:33
God knows everything we need and is standing by to provide it as soon as we put Him in first place in our lives.
We don’t have to worry and strive for things.
We do have to surrender our lives to Him.
As my pastor says, each day I choose who will sit on the throne of my life.
Will I rule, or will I surrender all authority to God?
For much of my life, I was a striver. I asked God to bless my ambitions. I sat on the throne of my life and only got off to let God sit there when I faced something I couldn’t handle.
Some of you may relate to this example.
For the last 40 years I’ve worked in the corporate world. One of the perks of success and promotion was a bigger and better office. The ultimate was a top floor corner office (I never made that one). I got a lot of satisfaction from getting those offices. I’ve had offices with downtown views and panoramic landscape views.
Now I have an office with three windows looking out onto a graveyard and y’all, this is the best office I’ve ever had.
I didn’t strive for this one, God provided it!
As I’ve been writing this, I’ve literally had two separate conversations with people about the view and that there must be something God is saying through it.
Sitting at my desk I can turn to the left and look out the window and I’m met with the largest monument in the graveyard. Picture a miniature Washington Monument but it’s over 30 feet tall. It’s close enough and large enough I can read the inscription on it.
I don’t know anything about the person it memorializes, but I do know it is not humble. Someone went to a lot of trouble and expense to be remembered.
I wonder if he put God first and lived a life of abiding or if he sat on the throne of his life and strived to get what he wanted.
This stands in stark contrast to Moses’ death and burial in Deuteronomy 34:5-7:
So Moses the servant of the Lord died there in the land of Moab, according to the Lord’s word. He buried him in the valley in the land of Moab facing Beth-peor, and no one to this day knows where his grave is.
Moses made God his priority, lived a life of abiding with God, and all things were provided for him even down to God being his pall bearer and providing his grave site.
No fancy monument to remind others of his importance, yet God made sure everyone knew that he was “a servant of the Lord.”
I want a legacy like that, don’t you?
An obedient, well-lived life, sustained and led by God.
How can we get there?
Putting God first changes striving to abiding.
What does abiding look like?
Psalm 23 takes us to a pasture where our Good Shepherd feeds us, waters us, and gives us rest. He guides us, protects us, and shows our enemies He is with us. His goodness and mercy chase us all our lives and He brings us safely out of this troubled world to our eternal home with Him.
John 15 takes us to a vineyard that God is tending. We are branches attached to the true vine, Jesus. The vine produces fruit through us if we stay attached to or abide in Him.
God prunes us so that we bear even more fruit. Pruning may hurt as He trims away anything that hinders His work through you. But realize, you can’t prune a branch without holding it in your hands.
What a picture of how much He cares for us.
This pruning keeps us tender and sensitive to His will.
What’s required of us?
Abide.Stay in the Word.Obey.
What’s the result?
An abundance of fruit.We prove to be His disciples.God is glorified.We experience love and joy.
I can tell you from personal experience life is so much better when you abide instead of strive.
Let go of everything you are trying to control in life and give it to God.
Put Him on the throne of your life each day.
Be contented in His provision.
Watch in amazement as He bears fruit through your life.