First, catch the rabbit …

It was a few decades ago that Reader’s Digest printed a tidbit that I know would immediately get voluminous “pushback” today. Check it out:

Elsa no longer remembers what the argument was about, but it began before breakfast one morning and continued as Steve started off to work.

“How can you just go off like that?” cried Elsa. “We haven’t settled a thing!”

Then Steve did what few men as ambitious and driven as Steve is could do: he turned around and went to the phone and canceled all his appointments for that day, “saying to me, in effect, that our relationship meant more than business meetings, saying that I’d married a man who would sacrifice work for love.”

I can imagine how so many would immediately begin to argue how unrealistic this story is, how a person just can’t call out from work like that, etc. While many of the objections and excuses people might raise could have genuine merit, there are times (many of them) in life when what is important, and most important, really must be put first.

Getting our “firsts” right is key to life.

The late preacher and professor, Haddon Robinson, once told about how one old recipe for rabbit started out with this injunction: “First, catch the rabbit.” Says Robinson: “The writer knew how to put first things first. That’s what we do when we establish priorities — we put the things that should be in first place in their proper order.”

No one was better at addressing the issue of “firsts” than was Jesus, who didn’t have any tolerance for getting what was of utmost importance out of order:

“He said to another man, ‘Follow me.’ But he replied, ‘Lord, first let me go and bury my father.’ Jesus said to him, ‘Let the dead bury their own dead, but you go and proclaim the kingdom of God.’ Still another said, ‘I will follow you, Lord; but first let me go back and say goodbye to my family.’ Jesus replied, ‘No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for service in the kingdom of God,'” Luke 9:59-62.

When we respond to God with, “Yes, Lord, but first …” what we’re really doing is disagreeing with God about what He says our priorities must be, and instead placing something in front of what God says should be first, even though Jesus was incredibly clear and blunt about such things:

“So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own,” Matthew 6:31-34.

The Apostle Paul points us to putting first the kingdom of God as well, although with a little different wording:

“Those who live according to the flesh have their minds set on what the flesh desires; but those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their minds set on what the Spirit desires,” Romans 8:5.

“Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God,” Colossians 3:1-3.

How do you respond to what God says must be first? With faithful obedience, or “Yes, but first …”? What “but firsts” in your life need to be transformed into simple, executed “yes’s”?

Scotty