“I’d like you to write down the three most important people in your life, in order.”
It was a deliberatively provocative way to start our latest small group meeting. I’d put my friends slightly off-track by announcing beforehand that the topic of the evening was ‘family’. I pushed them further in a particular direction by ‘admitting’ that I couldn’t choose between my two children, so I would allow them to group people together in the list.
I got what I deserved. The next few minutes were filled with discussions about how impossible (or at least painful) it was to rank people in such a way, and how to define ‘important’, but in the end it seemed that everyone had a list along the lines of “spouse, children, grandchildren” or something similar depending on age and marital status. There was no point asking the next two questions…
“How many of you put Jesus/God in your top three?”
“How many of you put Him at number one?”
Of course, if my preamble had been “This is a discussion about prioritising between God and family,” I would have expected them all to put God at number one, because that’s simply what you do – isn’t it?
In fact, when I had given myself this mental exercise a few days earlier it was outside of that context. Without much thought (but not entirely thoughtlessly), I had come up with the list “close family, best friend, Jesus”.
Jesus at number three?
I realised that there is often a conflict between the priorities I’d like to have and the priorities I demonstrate in my life, so I decided to talk about it in the group meeting, and I did some research on the Internet, because that’s simply what you do!
I read someone’s description of a sermon they once heard:
The pastor started the message by asking the congregation, “Why do you feel the need to skip church when you have family in town?” Everyone was cracking up because for anyone who grew up in the church, they knew that there was a grain of truth to what he was saying. The pastor went on to explain how churchgoers who attend regularly don’t see the big deal with skipping one Sunday to entertain family. He then compared this situation to Samson and Delilah and how Samson didn’t see the harm in just spending a little time with Delilah.
Is this is a fair comparison? I read the story in Judges 16, but I didn’t see the connection. There wasn’t the ‘skipping one Sunday’ thought in Samson’s mind, just a general lapse of wisdom. It made me wonder if that was the best example he could find to illustrate his point.
The pastor talked about how tithing can and does take a nosedive when our family needs money. He likened this to a lack of faith in God and an over reliance on your own financial means. The scripture he used to support this point was found in I Kings 17:10-16.
This is when Elijah asked a widow woman for a meal. She responded by saying that I’d like to but I am on my last meal and once I make it for my son and I, we are going to die. But God, speaking through Elijah said make a meal for me first and then make a meal for you and your son. Once she did this, she was rewarded with food for many days.
Do we have enough faith to put our family’s finances second and our giving to God first? This can be a real challenge. I tend to think that when it comes to money the most important thing is not to treasure it in your heart. If family, friend, or stranger has a need and you choose to help, surely God will be pleased, even if it means less is given in His house.
But if you consider the ramifications of putting God before family, we can’t get a more direct example than Genesis 22. Here is an abridged version, verses 1-2, followed by 9-12:
Some time later God tested Abraham. He said to him, ‘Abraham!’ ‘Here I am,’ he replied. Then God said, ‘Take your son, your only son, whom you love – Isaac – and go to the region of Moriah. Sacrifice him there as a burnt offering on a mountain that I will show you.’
When they reached the place God had told him about, Abraham built an altar there and arranged the wood on it. He bound his son Isaac and laid him on the altar, on top of the wood. Then he reached out his hand and took the knife to slay his son. But the angel of the Lord called out to him from heaven, ‘Abraham! Abraham!’
‘Here I am,’ he replied. ‘Do not lay a hand on the boy,’ he said. ‘Do not do anything to him. Now I know that you fear God, because you have not withheld from me your son, your only son.’
God tested Abraham to see if he would sacrifice his only son in obedience to the Lord. And then later God Himself sacrificed His only Son for our atonement. How far would we go, in giving up our family for God? Can you think of a sacrifice you have made – a decision made in obedience to God that hurt a member of their family?
It’s all very well having conversations about such matters between Christian friends, but sometimes it can be instructive to look at the question from a different angle. These are the words of somebody who wrote to Yahoo Answers. If somebody asked you this, how would you respond?
Something I’ve noticed lately from many Christians, & other adherents to Abrahamic faiths is that when asked what is most important in their life, they always say God, family, & something else. The reason I ask this is because usually they put God BEFORE their own family. I don’t mean to be rude, but I find that absolutely [expletive] crazy! No matter how religious of a person one may be, how can you possibly put God before your own family? I find that very disturbing, & believe that people like this are seriously sick in the head. I myself used to be Catholic but even during my time as a religious person, God came 2nd, my family came 1st. Does anybody else find it chilling that there are religious followers out there (many) who put family AFTER God? If their are people here like that, can you possibly explain this to me? If so, why is God before your very own family?
Several answers agreed with the sentiment of the original question, but here’s a different perspective.
L Williams, who founded a big insurance company to work on behalf of the consumer, said God first you second and everyone else third. It just seems to work, if you say, put your lover first, and they walk out the door, without your foundation laid right, your world crumbles. It is not so much about what I may feel is right and wrong, but what works and what doesn’t work.
So let’s read some of what Jesus said about family. Luke 14:25-27
Large crowds were travelling with Jesus, and turning to them he said: ‘If anyone comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters – yes, even their own life – such a person cannot be my disciple. And whoever does not carry their cross and follow me cannot be my disciple.
On which Matthew Henry’s commentary says this:
Every good man loves his relations; and yet, if he be a disciple of Christ, he must comparatively hate them, must love them less than Christ, as Leah is said to be hated when Rachel was better loved. Not that their persons must be in any degree hated, but our comfort and satisfaction in them must be lost and swallowed up in our love to Christ, as Levi’s was, when he said to his father, I have not seen him, Deuteronomy 33:9. When our duty to our parents comes in competition with our evident duty to Christ, we must give Christ the preference. If we must either deny Christ or be banished from our families and relations (as many of the primitive Christians were), we must rather lose their society than his favour.
He said of his father and mother,
“I have no regard for them.”
He did not recognise his brothers
or acknowledge his own children,
but he watched over your word
and guarded your covenant.
Compare this to Matthew 15:1-6
Then some Pharisees and teachers of the law came to Jesus from Jerusalem and asked, ‘Why do your disciples break the tradition of the elders? They don’t wash their hands before they eat!’
Jesus replied, ‘And why do you break the command of God for the sake of your tradition? For God said, “Honour your father and mother” and “Anyone who curses their father or mother is to be put to death.” But you say that if anyone declares that what might have been used to help their father or mother is “devoted to God,” they are not to “honour their father or mother” with it. Thus you nullify the word of God for the sake of your tradition.
And here is what Paul wrote in 1 Timothy 5:8
Anyone who does not provide for their relatives, and especially for their own household, has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever.
I’ll conclude with another of the Yahoo Answers:
Putting God before the family does not diminish the love of family. Actually one would say that the love of family and statement of your love of God are one in the same, for who teaches us of Love. The family seems to come first for many, but without the understanding of the Great Love of God how could one have the full concept of loving, devotion to the family.
References and further reading:
https://thesuperspade.wordpress.com/2006/03/15/is-your-family-more-important-than-god/
https://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20110304004555AAgyZi1
http://www.gotquestions.org/putting-God-first.html
http://focusongod.com/Family-01.htm
http://www.blogos.org/christianlifeandgrowth/God-before-family.php
A Christian Journey 