You won’t be the only person who has thought this. Perhaps it came to you during an examination of conscience. While you are to be congratulated for your honest evaluation, what will you do about it?

Most people can’t answer that question simply because the statement “I’ve failed to put God first” is too vague. A better way to approach this is to ask, “What would it look like for me to put God first in my life?” Would you have set times for prayer? Would attending Mass be something you’d choose over everything else? Would you take time each day to let God speak to you through the Bible?

It is critical that you come up with specific things. If not, you’ll be like thousands of people who, on January 1st say, “This is the year I’m going to get in shape.” That’s so vague as to be useless and because there’s nothing concrete in the goal, it will never happen. Consider, however, a goal like, “This year, I’ll go to the gym twice a week.” That’s wonderfully clear. When Saturday rolls around, you’ll be able to definitively say if you achieved your goal that week.

The same is true for our topic. “Putting God first” is vague. You need to come up with specific things to do and it will help to spend some time determining what you are currently placing before God. That may be the hardest task simply because the thing that’s occupying the first place in your life will be important to you. It may, in fact, be a perfectly fine thing that has slowly taken over your life. You would not be the first person, for example, to realize that your love of a particular sport has slowly pushed God aside.

Putting God first won’t happen easily. It will take prayerful thought to understand your current situation and more time to set specific goals. But keep in mind two things. First, this is worth the effort. God’s ways are always better than ours and will lead us to the abundant life Jesus promised his disciples (John 10:10). Second, you don’t have to do this all with your own strength. The Holy Spirit is in your life to help and empower you. That is critical for success.

It won’t be a surprise to learn that there are questions and topics that regularly come up in conversations I have with parishioners. These are, as the title suggests, worth repeating. I hope you’ll find this series helpful as we all seek to become better disciples of Christ.   Fr. Kevin

Fighting Against Envy and Jealousy – A Prayer of Thanksgiving

Here’s a simple prayer exercise that may help work against the temptation to be jealous of the possessions, talents, or situations of others. Your goal is to focus on what you do have rather than what you don’t, and this matters.

Envy and jealousy direct your focus to the things you don’t have and, if you consider this for a moment, you’ll realize that you won’t be satisfied even if some magic genie instantly conjured the things you want. Within days and maybe just hours, you’ll see something else you don’t have, and you’ll be back to living with envy. There will always be another thing to want.

Keeping your focus on what you have is the antidote to envy and jealousy. It is also a key to living a contented life – something we all want.

The exercise:

• As best you can, put yourself in a quiet, prayerful mindset.
• Begin to focus on God by slowly praying the Our Father.
• Then, make a long (as long as possible!) mental list of the good things you have. Include material possessions, people (past and present), experiences you’ve had, talents you possess, and anything else that comes to mind.
• When you finish your list, take a few moments to thank God and ask for the grace to appreciate those things.

Conclude your prayer with another Our Father or another short prayer that is meaningful