Misplaced Priorities

In early April I had to fly out of town for a day to make a presentation. Rather than parking my Jeep Cherokee in the infamously expensive Denver International Airport's parking lots, I chose an off-site lot that is less expensive and has a shuttle to take its customers to the airport.

One of the features of this particular lot is that for a slightly more expensive rate you can park your vehicle under covered parking to avoid the nasty hailstorms that sometimes strike Denver. Again, being the frugal (read: "cheapskate") person I am, I opted to leave my '98 Jeep in the uncovered portion of the lot. It's not that I don't value my Jeep, it's just that it's not that valuable or nice to warrant that type of special protection.

I made my presentation, flew back into DIA, caught the shuttle back to the lot along with about 15 of my closest friends (OK, they were total strangers), and then began the trip through the lot to locate everyone's vehicle.

Again, being the frugal (read: "cheapskate) person I am, I had never ventured to the covered portion of the lot. I suspected that vehicles parked there would be luxury SUV's, sports cars, etc. Sure enough, one of the shuttle passengers had a vehicle under covered parking, and I got to see just how the other half lives. As I guessed we pulled up to a beautiful, new SUV. If I owned a car like that, I suppose I would park it there too. As we continued under the covered parking, my suspicions were confirmed: new, luxury SUV's, expensive sports cars, top-of-the-line vehicles were parked everywhere.

Then I spotted it. There under covered parking, was a broken-down, rusted-out Toyota pickup. My Jeep is nothing special, but this pickup made my Jeep look like a truly expensive vehicle. I couldn't believe that someone would pay a higher price to park a truck like that in covered parking.

That pickup truck makes me think about misplaced priorities. For the pickup owner, it would appear that his/her priorities were somewhat misplaced. But truth be told, don't all of us have certain misplaced priorities--things we think are of absolute importance to us, but in the end aren't really as significant as we like to think. Some of those misplaced priorities may show nothing more than a silliness on our part to imagine that these things were so crucial to us. But some of our misplaced priorities, at their worst, may cause an eternal downfall for us.

Listen to this brief story recorded in Luke 12.

"The ground of a certain rich man produced a good crop. He thought to himself, 'What shall I do? I have no place to store my crops.' Then he said, 'This is what I'll do. I will tear down my barns and build bigger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. And I'll say to myself, "You have plenty of good things laid up for many years. Take life easy; eat, drink and be merry." ' But God said to him, 'You fool! This very night your life will be demanded from you. Then who will get what you have prepared for yourself?'

A critical case of misplaced priorities. For some its possessions, for others power, for others position, for others it's pleasure. All perhaps good things in their proper place, but if they take the place of God, then what?

Elsewhere in Luke, Jesus asks this searching question: "What good will it be if you gain the whole world, but lose your soul?"

Good question. Do you have your priorities straight? Have you made the pursuit of a relationship with Jesus Christ the number one thing in your life? Or are you figuratively parking a jalopy in covered parking while leaving something far more important without the attention it deserves?

Let's not get caught off-guard by misplaced priorities.