Mommy & Daddy’s Marriage Matters: Ordering Our Priorities to God’s Standards Not Our Cultures

One of the most important things we can teach our children is how to order their priorities according to God’s standards. We do this by living out God’s priorities for them through the example of our lives. Mommy and Daddy’s marriage matters because our culture is not an example of right priorities.

New to this series? Catch up on Mommy & Daddy’s Marriage Matters here.

As a mother, I have found it particularly challenging to keep my priorities aligned with God’s Word. I don’t know about you, but sometimes I feel like I am meeting myself coming.

For example, this post has taken me seven days to write. To boot, it is being posted later than I had originally planned!

I have had to start and stop several times.

• My husband needed a lunch packed or just a moment to talk with his wife.
• My son needed to nurse, a diaper changed, and just be held.

Each time I sat down to write, something else needed my attention. What accountability it has been to write this post this week.

As I have prayed through these challenges, I thought I would share with you what the Lord has been saying to me regarding what my priorities should be.

My Priorities Should Be:

1. Love God.

Revelation 2:3-4 says (my emphasis added):

I know you are enduring patiently and bearing up for my name’s sake, and you have not grown weary. But I have this against you, that you have abandoned the love you had at first.

How convicting!

Oftentimes, my morning meeting with the Lord becomes just another thing to check off my to-do list. But God says that I must not abandon him. He MUST be my first love.

2. Love our Husbands.

This is our second priority. In modern culture, this may come as a shock.

You mean, that my helpless child, is not a greater priority than my husband? Can’t my husband care for himself?

Well, yes, but God tells us in Genesis that it just simply not good for our husbands to be alone – caring for himself (Genesis 2:18). He needs a helper, and that helper is me. I’m perfectly fitted to him. I was taken from his side and fashioned in the likeness of God (Genesis 2:23). I wasn’t taken from my son’s side and fashioned just for him.

This is hard, but it is non-negotiable. My husband comes before my son.

3. Love our Children.

Motherhood is not our primary calling, for if it were, we would have some incredibly selfish children on our hands. To some extent, our culture gives us a perfect example of what it looks like to make our children our number one priority. We have only to walk into the nearest super market and walk down the cereal aisle to see this lived out.

My friends, we must be wise builders of our homes and marriages. We must devote ourselves first and foremost to God’s will – to laying down our lives for His glory. We must serve our husband’s – seeking to support and affirm his leadership. Then, and only then are we to devote our attention to our children – loving and making them disciples of Christ.

There is no greater gift that we can give to our children than to order our priorities rightly. And what I found most interesting of all? Having a clean house and healthy food and a well run blog did not make the cut as top priorities.

Questions: Do you have a hard time ordering your life to reflect your priorities? What are some common justifications you make for allowing yourself to re-arrange your priorities? You can leave a comment below.

This post is linked to Women Living Well Wednesdays, Titus 2sdays at Time-Warp Wife, and Marriage Mondays.

Related posts: