SUNDAY SERMON: God and family come before everything else

Once a friend who was a lawyer for a big firm in New York got home from a business trip. He had travelled to a dozen different cities.

He told me, “I’ve got to slow down or this job will kill me.

"Half way through the trip, I was standing in line waiting to get on a plane to go to the next city.

"The woman at the counter asked me where I was going. I said, 'Chicago.' She said, 'Sir, you’re in Chicago.'”

If you’re not careful, you can end up living a frenzied life. You may be conquering the world. You may be marching from victory to victory. But if your private life — if your spiritual life — is in shambles, that’s not success. That’s failure.

One of the wise men of modern times wrote: “Galloping, galloping! Doing things, getting things done! Feverish activity! A mad urge to be up and moving. Marvellous material constructions.

"Spiritually: strips of wood, cheap cloth, painted cardboard. Galloping! Getting things done! And many people running, coming and going. The fact is they’re working with their eyes fixed on today. They live only ‘in the present’.

"You must see things with the eyes of eternity, ‘keeping present’ what has passed and what lies ahead. Calmness. Peace. Intense life within you. Without galloping. From the place that life has assigned to you, be a powerful generator of spiritual energy, so that you can give light and strength to many!”

BALANCE

The world around us urges us to rush. Answer that phone call. Now. Check this message. Now. Watch this clip. Now. Send it to all your friends. Now. Stop for a snack. Now. Chuck the phone you bought last week and buy a new one. Now.

Okay, I’m exaggerating. But just a little bit. It’s not only our roads that are filled with people driving at breakneck speed. It’s not only cars,boda bodasandmatatuswhizzing by on tarmac.

Many of us rush through the day with a nagging sense: “I don’t have enough time. I have to move faster.” There are even children in Standard One who are forced to cram in more lessons because it’s never too early to start preparing for the KCPE exams.

As with many other aspects of life, find the balance between too much and too little.

Start with a simple awareness that modern culture tends to make work the number one priority, when, in reality God and family come first.

Not God and family as more “things” that you need to do before midnight. Not God and family as means towards some greater goal. But God and family as the whole reason for everything you do.