Agreed. The content is solid; the problem is the cadence. There are too many places where I treated an ordinary thought as though it deserved a dramatic line break. Below is the same article with the argument and voice preserved, but rebuilt into natural paragraphs. I've reserved standalone emphasis for only a few points where it actually earns it. This is the version I'd publish.
There is a phrase Christians use so often that it can become easy to say without stopping to consider what it actually requires of us: put God first.
I have said it. I believe it. But actually living it is considerably more difficult than putting the words on a coffee mug or repeating them when life is going well. What does putting God first look like when there is a mortgage to pay? When you are responsible for providing for your family? When you have ambitions you have spent years pursuing? What happens when the thing you desperately want seems good, responsible and reasonable, but the path in front of you appears to be leading somewhere else?
Putting God first sounds simple until something else is competing for first place.
For me, that competition has often involved control. I want to plan. I want to know where I am going. I want to work hard enough that I can protect my family from uncertainty. None of those things are inherently wrong. The problem begins when my confidence in the plan becomes greater than my willingness to surrender it. I am learning that putting God first does not mean abandoning responsibility. It means understanding who has authority over it.
What Did Jesus Mean by “Seek First the Kingdom of God”?
One of the clearest passages Christians associate with putting God first comes from Matthew 6:33:
“But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.”
It is a beautiful verse, but its surrounding context matters. Jesus had been speaking about worry. He talks about food, clothing and the basic necessities of life. He points toward the birds of the air and the lilies of the field and tells His listeners that their heavenly Father knows what they need. Then comes the instruction to seek God's kingdom first.
Jesus is not promising that putting God first will give us everything we want. Matthew 6:33 is not a formula for getting the career, house, income or comfortable life we have imagined. The context points in almost the opposite direction: Jesus is confronting our fear that if we do not control everything ourselves, everything may fall apart.
That hits differently when you have people depending on you. It is easy to say that God will provide when there is money in the account and everything is going according to plan. It becomes much harder when obedience and uncertainty occupy the same road.
Putting God first means trusting that God knows what I need even when I cannot yet see how those needs will be met. That does not eliminate responsibility. It changes where I place my trust while carrying it.
Putting God First Does Not Mean Neglecting Everything Else
There is a version of surrender that can become an excuse for passivity. “I'll leave it with God” can sometimes mean, “I don't want to make the difficult decision.” That is not what I understand putting God first to mean.
Scripture repeatedly calls Christians to act, work, serve, provide, love and exercise wisdom. A husband does not honour God by neglecting his wife. A parent does not put God first by ignoring the needs of his children. Someone struggling financially cannot necessarily stop working and call the resulting consequences an act of faith.
Jesus Himself connects love for God with love for other people. When asked about the greatest commandment, He answers that we are to love God with all our heart, soul and mind, and then tells us to love our neighbour as ourselves in Matthew 22:37–39. Those priorities are not enemies. Properly ordered, one should shape the other.
If God comes first, then being a husband should be shaped by that allegiance. Being a father should be shaped by it. How I earn money should be shaped by it. How I treat people should be shaped by it. What I do when nobody is watching should be shaped by it. Putting God first does not require abandoning the other responsibilities in our lives. It requires refusing to make any of them our god.
Sometimes the Competition for First Place Looks Responsible
This may be where things become uncomfortable. The things competing with God are not always obviously sinful.
Money can become one, but money itself is useful. Career can become one, but work is necessary. Family can become one, even though loving our families is good. Security can become one. Reputation can become one. Even the desire to build something meaningful can begin occupying a place it was never meant to occupy.
That is what makes idolatry difficult to recognize. Sometimes the thing demanding first place looks remarkably responsible.
I have struggled with the desire to create enough financial security that I no longer have to worry about what happens next. On the surface, that sounds like providing for my family, and part of it genuinely is. But there is a line somewhere between responsible provision and believing enough money will finally make me safe. I don't always know exactly where that line is.
That is why this question requires more than asking whether something is good. I also have to ask what happens when God asks me to loosen my grip on it. If losing something destroys my ability to trust Him, there is at least a possibility that I had begun trusting that thing more than I realized.
Putting God First Means Surrendering the Outcome
Proverbs 3:5–6 tells us:
“Trust in the LORD with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths.”
I used to hear verses like this and imagine surrender as a feeling. Increasingly, I think surrender often looks more like continuing to walk without possessing all the information I want.
We still plan, work, make decisions and deal with the consequences when we make the wrong ones. But somewhere in that process we have to be willing to say, I have a preferred outcome, but I do not have ultimate authority over the outcome.
That is difficult for someone who likes control, but it is also freeing. If everything depends entirely upon me, then every setback becomes evidence that I have failed to control the situation properly. Every closed door becomes a crisis. Every unexpected expense becomes a threat. Every deviation from the plan demands an immediate solution.
Surrender does not make those problems disappear. It changes who I believe is ultimately carrying me through them.
Putting God First Is Usually Decided in Ordinary Moments
I don't think most of us will make one enormous decision to put God first and then never struggle with the question again. We make the decision repeatedly.
It happens when telling the truth costs us something, when we choose forgiveness while still feeling hurt, or when an opportunity would benefit us financially but requires compromising something we believe. It happens when we realize our prayer life has become little more than presenting God with a list of outcomes we have already decided He should provide. It happens when Scripture confronts something in us that we would rather defend.
Jesus says in Luke 9:23 that anyone who would come after Him must deny himself, take up his cross daily and follow Him. The word daily matters.
Following Christ is not merely the memory of a decision I made years ago. There is still a self in me that wants control today. There are still desires capable of getting out of order today. There are still things I can begin trusting more than God today. So there is still something to surrender today.
How Do I Know If God Is Actually First?
I don't think there is a perfect checklist. We are remarkably capable of convincing ourselves that our preferred decision is also God's preferred decision. But there are questions worth asking.
When my plans are interrupted, do I immediately lose my peace? When Scripture contradicts what I want, which one am I trying to reinterpret? Do I pray for direction, or mostly pray for God to approve the direction I have already chosen? Is my pursuit of money about responsible provision, or have I quietly begun believing money can give me the security only God can provide? Do the people closest to me see evidence that my faith changes the way I behave?
And perhaps the hardest question is this:
If following Christ costs me the outcome I want, do I still want Christ?
I don't ask that question because I have mastered it. I ask it because I need to.
Putting God First Is About Who Sits in the First Chair
There will always be competing responsibilities. Family matters. Work matters. Money matters. Planning matters. The future matters. Christianity does not require pretending otherwise. The issue is not whether those things matter; the issue is whether any of them has quietly taken the first chair.
I still want to build things. I still want financial security. I still want to provide well for my family. I still make plans and work toward them. But I am learning that faith requires holding those plans with an open hand.
Putting God first does not mean sitting still and waiting for life to happen to me. There are times to wait, and there are times to move. There are responsibilities that remain mine whether I feel certain about the future or not. What changes is the order.
I can row the boat without pretending I control the sea. I can work without worshipping the work. I can provide without making money my source of security. I can plan without demanding that God follow my plan.
When my priorities begin drifting out of order—as they inevitably do—I can return to the question at the centre of all of this: What has first place in my life right now?
Putting God first is not a slogan. It is the repeated surrender of everything that keeps trying to take His place.
Continue Reading
If putting God first is something you're wrestling with, you may also find these reflections helpful: “Be Still and Know That I Am God: What Psalm 46:10 Means When You Need to Be in Control,” “When Providing for Your Family Becomes an Idol,” and “What Do You Do When God Feels Silent and Your Faith Starts to Feel Distant?” Each explores a different part of the same struggle—control, provision, surrender and continuing to trust Christ when the path ahead is unclear.
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