Feb 5, 20247 min read

GIRL, Get Your Priorities TogetHER

“If everything is important, then nothing is.”- Patrick Lencioni

As women, we often wear many hats: mom, wife, sister, daughter, friend, aunt, business owner, house manager, superwoman.

Multiply that by the numerous requests we receive to provide help, support, guidance, a listening ear, a shoulder to cry on, and more, and it’s no wonder we often find ourselves at the bottom of our own lists of priorities.

We know what we need to do, and we tell ourselves that we are finally going to do it.

Each year, we make our resolutions. We say things like…

I am going to spend more time in the Word.
I am going to finally purchase that gym membership and lose this weight.
I am going to meal prep every Sunday so I can save time and money and eat healthier.
I am going to write my business plan.
I am going to publish that book.

And after a few weeks, we’ve fallen into the same dysfunctional cycle of trying to be everything to everyone, trying to be everyone’s hero except our own. We live life seemingly on autopilot, running from one emergency to the next, showing up for everyone but ourselves.

When we do finally have a moment to ourselves, we are so burned out, we waste it doing things that don’t serve us:

Mindlessly scrolling on social media
Binge-watching the hot, new show on Netflix
Engaging in fruitless conversations
Hanging out and having fun instead of handling business
Drinking a glass of wine (or five) and drifting off to sleep

There never seems to be enough time to do what we said we wanted to do, to do the things we profess are important to us, will help make us better, will improve our physical and mental health, will help us access what Jesus promised–life and life more abundantly. Yet, the time we do carve out for ourselves, we spend on things that seem to move us further away from our goals.

Sis, it’s time to get your priorities in order.

A priority is something that has been deemed more important than something else. The problem is as women we struggle with choosing. We don’t make the hard choice to declare one thing as more important than the other often enough to see any real results in our efforts. Everything is all jumbled up together.

That just doesn’t work.

So, now here we are in the month of February in the year 2024. Think about the confessions you made just last month. Have you accomplished them? Are you reading the Word more? Are you praying more? Are you earning more money in your business? Are you losing weight? Are you eating cleaner? Do you have more joy and peace in your heart? Is your house clean? Have you swept around your own front door, and your closet, too?

If you have to hesitate or think about it, chances are you haven’t achieved as much as you could have if you had made decisions that lined up with your confessions.

But, why don’t we?

Because prioritizing requires sacrifice, and in a culture that teaches us that we can have it all without having to make tough choices about where we invest our resources, we don’t want to sacrifice.

I asked Holy Spirit to lead me to a gender-specific example of this in the scripture, and He led me to Matthew 25: The Parable of the 10 Virgins (or Bridesmaids* in the New Living Translation)

*A bridesmaid in this context is a woman about to get married.

Let’s read it together.

Parable of the Ten Bridesmaids

25 “Then the Kingdom of Heaven will be like ten bridesmaids] who took their lamps and went to meet the bridegroom. 2 Five of them were foolish, and five were wise. 3 The five who were foolish didn’t take enough olive oil for their lamps, 4 but the other five were wise enough to take along extra oil. 5 When the bridegroom was delayed, they all became drowsy and fell asleep.

6 “At midnight they were roused by the shout, ‘Look, the bridegroom is coming! Come out and meet him!’

7 “All the bridesmaids got up and prepared their lamps. 8 Then the five foolish ones asked the others, ‘Please give us some of your oil because our lamps are going out.’

9 “But the others replied, ‘We don’t have enough for all of us. Go to a shop and buy some for yourselves.’

10 “But while they were gone to buy oil, the bridegroom came. Then those who were ready went in with him to the marriage feast, and the door was locked. 11 Later, when the other five bridesmaids returned, they stood outside, calling, ‘Lord! Lord! Open the door for us!’

12 “But he called back, ‘Believe me, I don’t know you!’

13 “So you, too, must keep watch! For you do not know the day or hour of my return.

In this story, Jesus tells the story of 10 virgins who are preparing themselves for a wedding. The women gather their lamps and go out to meet their bridegroom. It can't get more gender-specific than a woman preparing for her wedding!

Those P-31 wives and wives-to-be understand the excitement, pleasure, joy, anxiety, but most of all, the preparation that goes into getting married.

So, the women go out to meet the bridegroom but there is a delay. The women all fall asleep and in the middle of the night, the bridegroom appears. The women wake up and grab their lamps to go out and meet him. Five of the women brought enough oil to refill their lamps, five did not and their lamps began to flicker and fade as their oil had been consumed.

The five without any oil ask to borrow from the five who had oil. They deny them and tell them to go into the market and purchase more. By the time the women return, the bridegroom has shut the door.

While this parable is a warning to always be prepared for Christ’s return, it’s also a story about misplaced priorities.

Oftentimes, people assume that parables about the Kingdom of Heaven are only about Heaven. However, when Jesus came to the earth, He brought Heaven with Him to show us how to experience Heaven in the earth, through the application of kingdom principles.

In that sense, this parable is teaching us to prepare to receive that which we confess is our desire.

Let’s examine the key characters and objects:

10 Bridesmaids–Five considered to be wise and five considered to be foolish.

I looked up the biblical definition of foolish to better understand what Jesus wanted us to know about these women. Here’s what it said:

Someone who refuses to listen to wisdom or learn from discipline

Acting without regard to the divine law or glory, or to one’s own eternal happiness

So even though these five foolish women knew they had a wedding to prepare for, they chose to focus only on what mattered most to them in the moment with no regard for their future or for the instructions they received. I wouldn’t be surprised if the 10 women spent their time leading up to the wedding together, which was often custom. So it’s not unlikely that they saw the wise women preparing their oil and chose to reject the wisdom of their example.

The lamps represent the women’s confessions:

“I want to be married.”

“I am going out to meet him.”

“I want to be with him.”

“I want to live life with him.”

But just like a lamp, our confession is useless without the oil that powers it.

Olive oil was produced by crushing olives in order to release the oil. This gave light to the lamp. Likewise, when we endure crushing, these sacrifices are what power our confessions.

All of the women had lamps, but only the wise women had extra oil in their vessels, which no one could see. Externally, all the women looked the same, but when the rubber met the road, the women who had been diligent in their sacrifice and wise in their decisions achieved the goal, and the ones who were quite literally left out in the cold.

Too many of us are content with doing “just enough”, except "just enough" is never enough.

Too many of us have lamps and no oil. Confessions without the decisions to back it up. The confession is merely the vehicle to carry your life’s choices.

When someone looks at your decisions, they should reflect your confession.

What are you confessing?---I love God; He is the head of my life.

What are you spending your time doing? —-Where’s your oil?

What are you confessing?---I love GIRLS. I don’t know where I would be without this AMAZING organization.