People Over Projects
One of the mantras that I try to live by is People Over Projects. I want to live and love like Jesus and when I look at His life it seems that Jesus prioritized deep, meaningful, intentional connection with the people God placed in His path.
Jesus lived life on mission. He had a job to do and He always kept that at the front of his thoughts. His focus was always on His ultimate purpose, yet He constantly carved out time to pause for people.
Matthew 22:37-40 says, “Jesus replied, “‘You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. A second is equally important: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ The entire law and all the demands of the prophets are based on these two commandments.”
That’s the kind of life that I want to live.
That’s the way that I want to love.
I want a deep, rich, vibrant relationship with God to be the center of my life. I want to love Him fully, with my whole heart, soul, and mind. Then, out of the overflow of that relationship, I want to love the people that He has placed in my life.
I don’t want to be someone who is ruled by a to-do list or who is a slave to the calendar on their phone. I don’t want the ding of a text message or email alert to set the pace of my day, nor do I want to measure a successful day by how much I got done.
I want the success of my day to be measured by how well I loved God and how well I loved the people He’s placed in my path. I want to see the needs of the people around me and to willingly set aside tasks to engage with those people. I want to love is such a way that I put those needs over my own needs and my desire to check something off my daily planner.
And I want to do these things because I know down deep in my heart that what counts for eternity isn’t my own personal agenda but living and loving like Jesus did.
But man, that is HARD sometimes.
True confession… I actually really like checking the items off of my to-do list and I really like the accomplished feeling of a task well done. And that’s OK.
In and of itself, productivity isn’t bad at all. In fact, it can be very good. But it can also be very dangerous because when our head is down and our eyes are focused on our to-do list it can be really easy to miss the people around us… or worse yet, to see them as distractions from “what really matters”.
In this slower season, I’ve been thinking a lot about that. I’ve been trying to really live and love like Jesus with my mission and purpose in mind but also with my eyes and my heart open to the people God has placed in my life.
And when I feel overwhelmed or stretched a little too thin, I’m reminding myself to choose people over projects and I’m looking to Jesus’ example on how to live and how to love well.