What is Most Important?

He hired also 100,000 mighty men of valor from Israel for 100 talents of silver. 2 Chronicles 25:6

If you asked me who or what is the most important person or thing in my life, at no point in my life would I have said “drugs”. There have been times in my life however, when, if you would have audited my time and energy expenditure, you would have seen that drugs were my priority. My behavior would have betrayed a reality that I wouldn’t have wanted to admit. My reality was that I was spending more time and energy on drugs than on anything else.

Maybe it doesn’t involve drugs, but I think a lot of us have some discrepancy between what we say is most important and what we actually treat as most important. As Christians, this discrepancy is apparent in the space between where we say we place our faith and where we actually place our faith. This is illustrated in today’s passage, which tells the story of King Amaziah as he was about to head off to war. In his preparations, Amaziah counted his soldiers, finding that he had 300,000 men. This sounds like a formidable number, but it wasn’t enough. So, Amaziah went and hired another 100,000 mercenaries. In response, God sent an unnamed prophet to correct Amaziah, telling him he didn’t need the 100,000 mercenaries. God was with him and that was enough. Amaziah was dubious, but in the end, he trusted God, sent home the mercenary army, and was victorious in battle.

So, what’s most important to us? In whom or what do we trust? Where do we find our joy and purpose in life? As Christians, most of us would say that we trust only in God and that our family (after God) is the most important thing to us. If, however, someone audited our behavior, what would they find? When we’re hungry, angry, lonely, or tired, do we turn to God for comfort? Do we rely on family? Or do we turn to social media, video games, or pornography for release, relief, and escape? If we say our faith is in God, yet we consistently turn to social media scrolling for comfort, then our behavior betrays that our faith is actually in our phone.

If I want my behavior to match my supposed faith, then daily, I must learn to turn to God. If I say he’s most important and that I trust in him, then I must learn to read, pray, and meditated in response to life’s stressors. Likewise, if I say my family is a priority, then I must live like it, putting them ahead of all else. I can say all the right things, but my behavior will prove what is truly most important to me.