Reclaim the Full Life by Seeking First
I am a natural prioritizer. I often act first and deal with seeking answers later.
Give me a list and I will rank it. Give me competing demands and I’ll build a framework for navigating them. Give me a complicated season with too many moving parts and I’ll find some sort of a system for keeping all of them moving in roughly the right direction simultaneously.
This trait has served me well across years of deadlines and homeschooling schedules and the logistical complexity of running multiple creative projects at once while also being a present wife, mother and friend.
But there have been times when I’ve leaned toward the tendency to put God on the list. To give him a slot, alongside everything else that was competing for the finite hours of a finite day. To treat seeking him as one priority among many rather than the organizing principle from which all the other priorities flowed.
Matthew 6:33 tells us to seek first. Not seek also. Not seek when everything else is handled. First. As in, the thing that comes before the list rather than appearing on it.
The Remarkable Difference Between First and Featured
There is a difference between making God a featured priority and making him actually first.
When God is a featured priority, I bring him my agenda. My list. My concerns about how the competing demands are going to resolve. I present the problems and ask for help solving them within the framework I’ve already constructed.
When God is actually first, the agenda itself gets reoriented. The framework doesn’t just get divine assistance; it gets replaced with something better. The things I was white-knuckling get loosened from my grip. Psalm 23:1 says, “The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.” The not wanting is a byproduct of the relationship, of actually following the shepherd rather than consulting him as one advisor among several.
When we look back at Matthew 6:33, we see Jesus is referencing basic needs. Food, clothing, shelter. He’s not promising that seeking first will produce wealth or comfort or the resolution of every difficulty. He’s promising that the God whose kingdom you’re seeking is also the God who knows what you need and will see to it.
This provision is relational. God doesn’t send the provision and stay at a distance. He’s the shepherd who leads you to green pastures. He’s the Father who knows what you need before you ask. He’s the source of, as Ephesians 3:20 describes, immeasurably more than we would have thought to request.
The Practical Shape of Seeking First
Seeking first can sound a bit abstract and difficult to do with a full schedule and competing demands.
For me, it means the first conversation of my day is with God rather than with my to-do list. And trust me, it’s not often long or eloquent. Just first. Before the agenda gets constructed, before the framework gets built, before the day takes its shape.
It means when a decision feels complicated, the first move is prayer before analysis. Bringing the thing to him before I start working it out on my own.
And it means holding the outcomes with an open hand. Doing the work faithfully and then releasing the results to the one whose kingdom I’m seeking. It’s trusting that the God who promised to add all these things actually means it, and that his definition of all these things is better and larger than mine.
The full life starts with seeking. Everything else follows from there.
LIFE — Living in Full Expectation means expecting that when you seek first, everything else will be handled. It might not be perfectly or always in the form you requested, but it will be handled by a God who knows what you need and has more than enough to provide it. That trust in a relationship is the foundation of the full life.
Join the Conversation
What’s one area of your life where you’ve found it hardest to release control? And what has helped you loosen your grip on it, even a little? Share in the comments. We all have the things we hold too tightly, and there’s real encouragement in hearing how others have learned to open their hands.
Now, this is for those with:
- the list you’ve been managing
- the slot where you’ve been putting God other than the first place
- the specific areas where seeking first would require actual reorientation rather than just better scheduling
Your journal is the perfect place for that honest conversation. Write what it would actually look like to seek first in the life you’re living right now. What things do you need to change to reorient your life into this seek-first posture?
“Seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.” — Matthew 6:33
