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Your Best Life


 Are you living your best life or are you just trying your best to live life?


This question was asked by my teenage son, Wess. He’s a deep thinker... sometimes. And in one of our thought-provoking conversations, this question came up. I thought it was worth putting out there. 


For many of us, life is about moving from one event to the next. The great rat race. Survival of the fittest. I confess that this was once how I felt. That most days I was treading water and just trying to keep my head above surface. Just muster up a bit more to give. Unfortunately, this resulted in a cycle of exhaustion, and then the enemy would plague my mind that I wasn’t enough. Have you ever been there?


The cycle had to stop. For me, my physical body began manifesting the stress and burden on my mental and spiritual wellness.  I had to make a choice to reprioritize what mattered most. I couldn’t keep treading the waves and going under for a spell only to burst back to the surface just before I drowned. Nope. No more. So, with God’s help, I made up my mind to set my priorities in order:

  1. God
  2. My husband
  3. My kids
  4. My extended family
  5. Everything else
  6. Me


I realized something. By making this simple list, I began giving myself permission to say no to the lower priorities if it adversely affected the higher ones. If I was spinning my wheels on something outside of my home and my family suffered as a result, it wasn’t as necessary as I thought it was. 


But the most transforming thing about having my priorities in order is that my “no” turned into someone else’s “yes.” I had spent time on things that I was unwilling to turn over or let go because I felt that if I didn’t do it, no one else would. I was possibly keeping others from stepping out and stepping up because of my need to micromanage the universe!


Well, believe or not, the earth didn’t stop spinning when I stopped doing it all. In fact, my world opened up to a whole new side of life that I had only dreamed about. My marriage got better because I was loving God like I was supposed to, so I was loving Lyndon like I was supposed to. My relationship with my kids grew deeper and became less about keeping to a schedule and more about making room for quality time and meaningful conversations.  Conversations that led to the question at the start of this post.


Matthew 6:21 says, “Wherever your treasure is, there the desires of your heart will also be.” What does your treasure-or in this case your top priority-say about you? I may not have all the answers, but I can say without a doubt that if your priorities are in order, you are living your best life. 


© Jill Cook, Unbroken & Undone Ministries. All rights reserved.


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