Prioritizing your time

  • Thread starter Thread starter IAMLDS
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
I

IAMLDS

Guest
In a Sunday meeting we talked about four areas of commitment and we were asked to prioritze them. In not any order they were:
  1. Church
  2. Career
  3. Family
  4. Physical Health and Personal Spirituality
How would you prioritize these in your life? We did recieve a recommendation. Some of the people in the congregation weren’t happy with it. Maybe later I’ll tell you what it was. Rather than give you something to rail against, I’d rather hear how you think the list should be prioritized.

For sake of this discussion lets add a fifth item to the list: Community Service.

So prioritize the following list and explain why you did it the way you did.
  1. Community Service
  2. Physical Health and Personal Spirituality
  3. Church
  4. Family
  5. Career
 
And this has to to with “Non-Catholic Religions” how…?:confused:

I note that you are LDS. Perhaps you are under the misconception that because you are a non-Catholic, you have to post any and all topics here. My understanding is that is not the case. This forum is for discussing aspects of non-Catholic religions.

I’m not trying to play moderator here, but perhaps the family or spirituality forums here may be more appropriate?🙂
 
IAMLDS said:
In a Sunday meeting we talked about four areas of commitment and we were asked to prioritze them. In not any order they were:
  1. Church
  2. Career
  3. Family
  4. Physical Health and Personal Spirituality
How would you prioritize these in your life? We did recieve a recommendation. Some of the people in the congregation weren’t happy with it. Maybe later I’ll tell you what it was. Rather than give you something to rail against, I’d rather hear how you think the list should be prioritized.

For sake of this discussion lets add a fifth item to the list: Community Service.

So prioritize the following list and explain why you did it the way you did.
  1. Community Service
  2. Physical Health and Personal Spirituality
  3. Church
  4. Family
  5. Career
Click to expand...
I don’t really like the options given.

If I had to prioritize, mine would be:
  1. God (includes church and spirituality)
  2. Community(includes family)
    3.Yourself(includes career and health)
That said, and now that I’ve written it, I don’t really see how you can seperate one from another. Loving God means doing whatever he asks of us, and he asks to love each other and to live out our vocations in holiness. If we fail on #2 we have certainly failed on #1. Even doing things for yourself (#3) are only meaningful to the extent that they enable one to better perform #1 and #2.

In my mind all are important and necessary. None can have priority over the other, they are all integrated and dependent upon each other.

That’s my take.
 
Fidelis said:
And this has to to with “Non-Catholic Religions” how…?:confused:

I note that you are LDS. Perhaps you are under the misconception that because you are a non-Catholic, you have to post any and all topics here. My understanding is that is not the case. This forum is for discussing aspects of non-Catholic religions.

I’m not trying to play moderator here, but perhaps the family or spirituality forums here may be more appropriate?🙂
Click to expand...
I think this is a good opportunity to demonstrate the difference between LDS and Catholic approaches to spirituality and church.

LDS are church centered and systems centered. The church and it’s structures and systems are the most important things. The mechanics will keep you on track.

Catholics are Jesus centered and community centered. Interior conversion, submission to God’s will, and service to the larger community are the most important things. The church is there as a framework to support us, not a machine that drives us. The Catholic approach is more organic.
 
God
Family
Work
Community

“God” means my personal relationship with God. “Family” means caring for my family, all aspects, includes teaching our Catholic faith as well as living it. “Work”, means to do our best for our employer or whatever we choose for financial support for the family. “Community” means to love our fellow man, give to appropriate charities, offer assistance wherever we can give of our talents. This includes doing our duty of voting, volunteering, etc.

My husband is ex-LDS. (Now Catholic.) He tells me that the LDS say “church” is # 1 and it is very difficult to turn-down the callings given to the members in order to keep them active in the church.

My young LDS friend tells me that his church keeps him so busy he barely has time for his family and he encounters ressistance when he tries to “quit” some of his callings. This, among aother reasons, is bringing him to search for another religion for his family.

Love and peace, Mom of 5
 
What we do each day is the very essence of who we are. Who we are is a result of our core beliefs. One purpose of the gospel is to help us define our core beliefs. I think this conversation is very appropriate for this forum.

The reason I started this topic is LDS were being put down in another thread as not being involved enough in community affairs. I bet we all struggle with juggling multiple “important” items in our lives. I think this conversation would be more productive if you stopped trying to force LDS into a negative position, and realized we are also 3 dimensional, thinking, human beings.

The LDS Church is very dependent on it’s members in order to function. If no one volunteered to take on callings then it would not function. There is no professional clergy whose operation allows everyone else to relax and enjoy the show. (See I can do it too.)

I’m sure that an active practising Catholic will make an effort to be involved and insure the community of Christ is having a positive impact on their own children, on the children of other families, and on the guy down the street who hasn’t made Christ a priority yet.

By the way, Church was third on the list when the LDS leader was talking about priorities in the church meeting I was attending. In the last two years I’ve heard a number of talks counseling LDS members to use moderation in their church service. We as individuals tend to set the bar too high. So I would have to disagree with those of you who say that the LDS Church says put the Church first.
 
It all depends upon the ward you belong to as to how much church work you are asked to do. It only makes sense that since there is no “clergy”, the membership is expected to take care of all local church business. It is nice that it is 3rd on some lists, but in reality, it just doesn’t work that way for most. I am very familiar with LDS. Husbands relatives were LDS, a few are practicing (kind-of). My best friend is LDS and quite honestly, tells me more than she should, as well as several young family friends and their families. My hubby was LDS for 64 years, practicing LDS for 51 years, I believe that he is telling the truth. He is not bitter about LDS,he has warm fuzzies for some of the memories he came away with, but simply cannot believe in Joseph Smith, the BOM, etc. He studied long and hard and tried to “defend the faith” until he came to the conclusion that the very church that LDS says is in apostacy is the true church.

LDS, Catholic, or any other religion all have certain expectations of their membership. If members are not active, the church cannot stand. It is the amount of work that takes away from other important personal and family routine that needs to be kept in check. I am aware of several people in our parish that are so “active” one wonders when they they spend any time with family, work. It also stands to reason that a church without clegy will expect more of the membership that a church with clergy., someone “has to do it”.

A huge reason for priests to remain celibate is that the work load of the priest would /could put serious strains on the marital/family relationship. My friends son-in-law was ward Bishop for 2 years. His work load was incredible. His marriage nearly fell apart.

Love and peace, Mom of 5
 
IAMLDS said:
What we do each day is the very essence of who we are. Who we are is a result of our core beliefs. One purpose of the gospel is to help us define our core beliefs. I think this conversation is very appropriate for this forum.

The reason I started this topic is LDS were being put down in another thread as not being involved enough in community affairs. I bet we all struggle with juggling multiple “important” items in our lives. I think this conversation would be more productive if you stopped trying to force LDS into a negative position, and realized we are also 3 dimensional, thinking, human beings.

The LDS Church is very dependent on it’s members in order to function. If no one volunteered to take on callings then it would not function. There is no professional clergy whose operation allows everyone else to relax and enjoy the show. (See I can do it too.)

I’m sure that an active practising Catholic will make an effort to be involved and insure the community of Christ is having a positive impact on their own children, on the children of other families, and on the guy down the street who hasn’t made Christ a priority yet.

By the way, Church was third on the list when the LDS leader was talking about priorities in the church meeting I was attending. In the last two years I’ve heard a number of talks counseling LDS members to use moderation in their church service. We as individuals tend to set the bar too high. So I would have to disagree with those of you who say that the LDS Church says put the Church first.
Click to expand...
I said LDS are “church and systems centered”. Please explain why physical health is lumped in with personal spirituality. Seems very odd to me. Illness and infirmity often cause a person’s spiritually to get stronger. They usually draw closer to God during times like these.

It’s almost as if someone in your ward has bought into the “health and wealth” gospel preached by some evangelicals.
 
Tmaque said:
I said LDS are “church and systems centered”. Please explain why physical health is lumped in with personal spirituality. Seems very odd to me. Illness and infirmity often cause a person’s spiritually to get stronger. They usually draw closer to God during times like these.

It’s almost as if someone in your ward has bought into the “health and wealth” gospel preached by some evangelicals.
Click to expand...
The combination of personal health and personal spirituallity may have been my own doing. It was more than a month ago that I participated in the discussion, and I may have mixed in a few of my own details. You just can’t trust your memory to pass along doctrine, can you? (Never mind, that’s another topic.)

In my own way of thinking I like the combination. It encompasses an LDS doctrine delineated in the following scripture from the Doctrine and Covenants:

Section 29

34 Wherefore, verily I say unto you that all things unto me are spiritual, and not at any time have I given unto you a law which was temporal; neither any man, nor the children of men; neither Adam, your father, whom I created.

35 Behold, I gave unto him that he should be an agent unto himself; and I gave unto him commandment, but no temporal commandment gave I unto him, for my commandments are spiritual; they are not natural nor temporal, neither carnal nor sensual.

So in my understanding, the LDS health code, when obeyed will have a positive impact on my spiritual life. My strong back allows me to cut the widow’s winter wood. My good fitness allows me to climb a local mountain with my son, and teach him a love for the outdoors.

I also agree that times of illness can help us pull closer to God. During difficult illness we can be an example to others of patience, endurance, and faith.

You’ll have to explain the health and wealth gospel reference. I’ve not heard of that before.
 
IAMLDS said:
  1. Community Service
  2. Physical Health and Personal Spirituality
  3. Church
  4. Family
  5. Career
Click to expand...
The word “career” is different from “getting food for your kids”, even though both involve money or work. A “career” is on the bottom of my list. Feeding the kids would be on a different level. Also, physical health is a requirement to fulfulling other duties, like feeding the kids. So, how do I rank that? Sure, some aspects of physical health can be ignored, say that your skin will be burned while you pull your kids out of a fire, but with day to day stuff, you have to be alive to feed your kids.

Perhaps you only mean what percentage of a particular day is spent on each activity? If that is the case, it varies by your particular state of life and duties. For me:

Physical Health and Personal Spirituality (prayer life, study life, eating, sleeping, brushing teeth, etc.)
Husband (feeding him, talking to him, maintaining house for him, etc.)
Community Service (I include Church things that are also service things as well)
Church (I mean more specific Church things, like mass, although that is perhaps better in prayer life:confused:, I guess I have no idea what you mean by “Church” as a priority. God is up there in number one at prayer life.)
Remainder of Family (brothers, mother, etc.)

I also work, but I don’t know how to list that, since working provides food to feed us and allows me to serve the community as well as functions as a study life for me. If it weren’t well-rounded, I’d quit. If I have to put it in the list like some separate thing as a function of time, it is second or third on the list. The first thing on the list blows everything else away time-wise.

If you want my personal priorities, like what I value, God goes first, and probably my sanity goes second. My sanity means praying, loving, working, relationships, keeping duty, etc. However, various crisis take priority over my sanity, say if a family member is sick and needs me to help.

I don’t know, I find these categories you give hard to separate out. I just look at my life each day and do what needs to be done that day. I rarely have to make any kind of choice between them. Except, my health is often ignored, though it has gotten rather cantankerous about that lately. (note I am still alive, though).

Let’s love God first, and our neighbor as ourself.🙂
 
My first priority would be the love the Lord my God with all my heart, soul, mind and strength. My second priority would be to love my neighbour as myself. That is what our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ told us to do. He has it right. If I listen to Him, I will be doing the proper things. ❤️ :bible1: :gopray2:
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top