For several weeks, James didn’t respond to any of the six texts I sent. When we finally connected, I just had to ask, “Why didn’t you respond to any of my texts?”
He said, “Pat, I’m really sorry. I’ve had to work out of town for ten of the last thirty days. My wife isn’t happy about all the travel. I missed our son’s Little League championship game—he hit a double and drove in the winning run. My daughter is being bullied on social media, so that’s taking an emotional toll. I have more than a hundred work-related emails, texts, and phone calls I still need to return. To be honest, I’ve just been so overwhelmed that I’ve felt paralyzed.”
I get it, and I’m sure you do too. It’s easy to get out of whack and not know how to fix it. The twenty-four men who set the contents for The Christian Man were only one vote shy of making life balance their #1 issue, asking questions like:
- What should a typical day look like for a Christian man?
- How do I balance everyday life without losing focus on God and what’s important?
- How do I prioritize effectively?
- In what ways can I get out of my normal routine and create a godly one?
- What are some applicable tips to help me use my time better, especially for personal growth?
- I want everything I do to reflect Jesus. I want integration there. I want a clean break between my work and my family. How do I do that?
- Are hobbies okay?
How can you juggle all the demands on your time, intellect, emotions, money, and relationships?
The answer is to live by priorities. Priorities can help you manage the pressures that will otherwise manage you.
Having too many priorities is a common complaint. Investor Warren Buffet, the “Oracle of Omaha,” said you can only handle five priorities. He was fanatical about knowing what you want, learning the tools you needed to get there, whittling your list of priorities down to five, and then making everything beyond your top five priorities what he called your “avoid at all cost” list.
Of course, there’s no iron law about how many priorities a man can have. And while there’s no “one size fits all” answer, The Christian Man lays out an action plan for you to reflect and settle on your priorities in five major areas: loving God, loving people, vocation, ministry, and money.
-Patrick Morley
