First Things First

Ian Revie

“For I know the plans I have for you…”
Jeremiah 29.11

Many of you will know that Joy and I are spending a lot of our time with our daughters and their boyfriends renovating their houses. Our daughters’ boyfriends are very keen to do DIY work on their houses and both are very capable young men. Over the last few years we have a phrase that I have used with them to encourage progress in the tasks - both have very strong visions about what they want to achieve, however both struggle to get started.

The phrase I use, that has now been understood and is now being used by them in their workplaces, is “you must do the first thing first”.

What we mean by this is that a vision will never be achieved unless you get started, and the first task is often a very simple and basic task that can normally be achieved quickly and easily. Until the first task is done, we will not know what the next step is. So we debate and then conclude: “let's do the first thing first”.
Then we continue - when the first task is done, the next task now becomes the first task and so on.

This reminds me of our journey of faith: God gives us a vision or a purpose for our lives (if you don't have one, pray for one until you see what your vision for your life is about). The vision is great to have but it is not given to us for fun, it is given to us to be our guide in our life journey.

The journey requires us to do something:-

• to take steps of faith

• to test the vision

• to see what next steps we need to take

• the next step follows the same pattern: “do the first thing first”

God asks us to “do the first thing first”. This is faith.

“Not so fast. You can no more show me your works apart from your faith than I can show you my faith apart from my works. Faith and works, works and faith, fit together hand in glove”

James 2:18