The Whisper of God

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The Three Most Important Things

The other day I asked everyone if they would answer a question.  The question was: List, in order, the three most important things in your life.

The following is a summary of the top answers that were posted.  I have organized them into groups of answers that were similar.  In no particular order, the answers included:

  • God, Jesus, Faith (#1 in a majority of responses)
  • Family, Children
  • Friends
  • Health
  • Sobriety, Recovery
  • Happiness, Peace, Love
  • Home, Country

As I said when I asked the question, there is no right or wrong answer and everyone’s answer is very personal and given for their own reasons.  I can tell you that the question I asked everyone is also a question that I have asked myself quite a bit.  For me, I have come to a point where I can give my answer as being God, Family, and Health.

Why have I chosen this order for my answer?

#1 God: Why God is first is something that more can be written about than I could fit into this article but I will try to give you an overview.  If something is not stated here it doesn’t mean it is not a reason – I likely just didn’t have room to include it.

God grounds me.  God gives me a place to go back to so I can “reset” my thinking when I might get confused, angry, upset, sad, or any other emotion that might cloud my judgment,  These are emotions we all have to deal with.  But when negative emotions might seem to creep into my being, I can spend a few minutes in prayer with God and I seem to be able to regain my sense of well-being.

God guides me.  Not only through His word as He has given us in the Bible but through the thought of trying to act out of God’s love, God guides my actions.  Many times I will try to act in a manner that I would think God would act in a similar situation.  For example, God forgives us; as such, I try to be a forgiving, compassionate, and understanding person.  I have also learned from God how to listen.  It seems to me that God listens more than He talks and through the act of listening you are actually giving more of yourself to someone else than if you were talking.

God gives me hope: God has been very good to me in my life.  Many times when things seemed bleak, God came through for me and made my future brighter than I could have ever imagined.  It is based upon this that I have hope that every day that comes will be better than the day that just passed.

#2 Family & Friends: Now I might be cheating here a little bit by adding two things into one but both represent the people that I have in my life or choose to have in my life.

Between my family and my friends I have people in my life that I can rely on to be there when I need them and for me to be there for when they need me.  I will do almost anything I can to help my family and friends.

One might ask why didn’t I put Family and Friends first.  This is because God helps strengthen my relationships with my family and friends.  Many times it is God who I need to turn to in quiet reflection to help me sort out my relationships and and how I should interact with those around me.  Without God, I don’t think my relationships would be as good as they could be.

#3 Health:  Why have I chosen health over many of the other things I could have?  It is quite simple for me.  God has given me life on earth.  The amount of time that I have been given to live my life is limited.  Although I believe that at the end of my life, there is someplace wonderful that I will go, I do enjoy my time here and now.  And although I am not afraid of the day that I might pass on, I want to enjoy the time that I have been given for as long as I can.  And, now that I have found the inspiration that God has given me to write, I would like to continue to do this for as long as I can.  So to do this, I need to take better care of myself so I can extend the time that I have to live my life here on earth.

It is interesting when I look back at how I answered the question to see what an integral part God plays in each of the things I listed as being important to me.  I don’t want you to think that because I answered the question this way that this is the right way for you or anyone else to have to answer it.  As I said before, there is no right or wrong way and each person will answer in their own way.

But, there is a common theme running through my life and my answers that we all may share even though the order of our answers is different: God is what ties everything together.

Comments

  2. Elmer,
    what a wonderful article and wonderful testimony you have! I also find it refreshing to “journal” and I gain a clarity doing it that I wouldn’t otherwise get just by “hashing things out in my mind”. Thank you for the work you do, I will continue to support your website and pray for you when the Holy Spirit reminds me.
    In Christ-
    Cat

  3. What are the three most important things to us? Whatever they are, why don’t we spend more time on/with them? I’m not trying to be critical, but I have found it to be true that we ‘say’ God, family, etc., are all important, but a lot of us spend precious little time with these which we have identified. That might be a good New Year’s Resolution, huh? Spend more time with God, family, etc.

  4. Thank you for asking the question and providing the results and giving us your priorities. Thank you for what you do.

  5. thanks for the mail.
    id good for me.
    let us pray and hope that my life too will be taken to a better place full of self esteem and love

  6. The 3 most important things

    God grounds, guides, gives hope…it seems as if were written for me and gave me so much peace.

  7. I have reunited with some very kind people on FB recently and I do thank Father God that He has kept us all in the duration of our lives. I also desire to bring those with whom have misunderstood me and I, misunderstanding them in the past. I have been through a GREAT number of trials and Tribulations (some near misses with death itself).

    From that, I have learned that people are precious and it hurts so much when people can be so very hateful, because “hate” is such an awful feeling to have inside. It changes every single cell in the body.

    I do not want to hate anyone (but the cruelty of and in others makes it very difficult not to). All in all, I will ask others on this board if :

    Is it wrong or silly to befriend those that did not like or understand me in the past?

    All that I truly would like to do is to let them know that I am not so bad or worthless as they may have thought me to be.

    I would like to let them know that I can understand and become a better listener to them and to the faithful, dear and very special ones who have accepted my friendship so readily. I care for them all.

    So help me figure out the wise thing to do, okay? I am already praying about my actions and I would like to make better decisions along the way.

    I don’t know why I feel this way (so strongly) but people are special to me. Sometimes, I wish I could be regular in this way, But, I am not. Like Monk said; “Its a blessing and a curse.”

  9. Thank you for this web-site. It is like a life preserver to a drowning person to me. I have strayed so far from God but I am swimming back to HIM the great I AM . Please pray for me to know how to pray. Thank you