HELP!!!! I PUT GOD FIRST ON MY PRIORITY LIST AND HE HAS TAKEN UP ALL THE SPACE.

Yeah, I know you may be wondering why that may be a problem.

 Well… Let me explain.

Sometime towards the end of last year, when the Holy Spirit was dealing greatly with me, panel beating my life to adjust to His own plan, I began thinking about the idea of having God as first on my priority list.

I thought “God cannot just be first on my priority list or on my everyday things-to-do list. I mean, if He’s first, what comes second. As in, what is close enough to God to come second on that list?”

And then I thought again “is there anywhere in the Bible that calls God the First in something, without saying He ends it too?”
So with my knowledge of the Word, I did a quick check –

He is First AND the Last – Revelation 22:13

Beginning AND the End – Revelation 22:13

Alpha AND Omega – Revelation 22:13

Author AND Finisher – Hebrews 12:2

Well, Hebrews 5:9 calls Him the Author of eternal salvation, without saying anything about Him being the finisher of it. But I mean the writer of Hebrews didn't waste much time before he referred to Him as “Finisher” of our faith in chapter 12. So yeah, nothing – nowhere.

“Hmmm…” I thought, “So it goes to show that if I put God first on my priority list, I cannot just leave Him as first, and then get on with other things. I kinda have to put Him as last too.” 
Well, it seemed to me like He’s all encompassing; ‘cos, if He’s First and He’s Last, whatever comes in between gets sandwiched by Him. Right? OK, I see.

Then again, that explanation didn't go so well with me. I knew I was hitting the nail somewhere, but I didn’t know where or how. So I kept thinking. I assumed that my things-to-do list or my priority list was a “scale” of preference list, with the heavily weighted items topping the list. I imagined that if I “weighed” GOD – (the Almighty, God of all the Universe, Commander of the Lord’s Army, the Rock, God over all kingdoms, King of all kings, Lord of all, Master of Heaven, Great and Marvelous, etc. you know what I mean) – on my scale of preference, it was going to read Error, dash-dash-dash, and then it’ll go beep beeeep beeeeeep.

 Haha!!!!!!

I began to realize that God cannot be weighed. He cannot be compared to anything – anything at all. I realized that if I put God on my priority list, He will leave no space for anything else. He doesn’t share. He either has me or does not have me at all. 

I read months later in John C. Maxwell’s Life@Work that if you put God first on your daily things-to-do list, you will not get around to anything else in the day. He’s gonna take up all the space, all the time, everything.

So rather than list God as first, I now choose to put Him in the center – Center of everything. 

Max Lucado, in his book, It’s Not About Me, mentioned that when God looks upon the earth, He doesn’t see me. He doesn’t see you. He sees Jesus. He went on to describe Jesus as the Center ‘C’ of life.

You know, I read that book a long while ago, and never really understood what He meant by Jesus being the Center ‘C’, until I started getting serious with my piano lessons. I realized that the Center C (or Middle C) on the piano keyboard is the master of all the keys. It doesn’t look any different from the other white keys, but it is not on the same level as the other keys. All the other 35 white keys and all the 25 black keys on my five-octave keyboard know it. The Center C, itself, knows it. They know that without it the music is too high or too low. They know that without it there can hardly be a balance in musical pieces. The Treble Clef revolves more than halfway around it; the Bass Clef revolves the other way around it. The Center C is the key of all keys and yes, it sure knows it.

 My piano tutor, when he was giving me lessons about the middle C, thought he was offering piano lessons; little did he know that he was opening my eyes to a spiritual truth that would stick with me forever.

Jesus is my Center ‘C’.

I don’t have to put Him as first on my priority list; and get done reading my Bible and praying in the morning, and then get on with my day – with numbers 2 and 3 and 4 and … and last. No, I don’t! I can carry Him along with me everywhere, in everything. Or better still, He can take me along with Him everywhere and in everything He wants me involved in. He can be in the center, with all things pointing to and from Him – He can be the Author TO Finisher of my faith; He can be All in All in my family; He can be Lord and Master over my relationships; He can be First TO Last in my career – He can and is and will be everything from everything to everything in my life. He isn’t just first on my list. He runs through from number 1 TO number last. 

So, away with the priority list! I’ll put other things on it, but my Jesus. He doesn’t belong there. He rules over everything in my life anyway. And He knows He does. He is my “Center ‘C’ Jesus”. I love to call Him that.