Recalibrate Your Lifeنموونە

The No. 1 Priority

Because of their centrality to life, relationships are central to the recalibration process.

Jesus emphasized that the most important priority in life, regardless of life stage or situation, is indeed relationships; every other command ultimately falls under this larger umbrella. In Matthew, He says:

“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.” This is the great and first commandment. And the second is like it, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.” (Matthew 22:37–40)

Notice the order of Jesus’s words: a life well-lived focuses first on a right relationship with God and second on relationships with our fellow humans. (There’s also an implied third relationship in the mix—our relationship with ourselves since we are to love others as ourselves.)

In other words, the secret to life is prioritizing our vertical relationship with God—loving Him with all our being—and then allowing that relationship to animate and empower our relationships on the horizontal plane (with other people and ourselves). Without this correct ordering, our relationships will fail, both in practice and in purpose.

Relationships without Regret

If you talk to people approaching the end of their lives (or those who interact with such people, like hospice and palliative care workers), it is almost without exception that some people’s primary end-of-life regrets are in the area of relationships. A high percentage wish they had:

• Spent less time working and more time with family, especially their kids when they were young
• Done more for other people
• Been a better spouse or parent

When we recalibrate, we do well to pay close attention to the relationships in our lives so we will avoid such regrets.

Loving Until the End

If our plans and goals center on ourselves—on grabbing instead of giving, on finding comfort and pleasure for ourselves rather than showing compassion to others—then we’ve missed the heart of the Christian life. This doesn’t mean we ignore our own needs at the expense of others (we’re to love others as we love ourselves, Jesus reinforced), but neither should we become so focused on ourselves that we neglect those around us.

Prioritizing people will look different in everyone’s life. God is not concerned with appearances or quantity; He looks at our hearts. Serving others quietly without anyone’s knowledge is just as laudable as loving and serving in more visible ways.

Loving the Next Person

Corrie ten Boom, best known for her heroism and survival during the Holocaust (documented in The Hiding Place), lived her entire life with a laser focus on serving God by serving others. A biography about her, The Five Silent Years of Corrie ten Boom (written by her caregiver Pamela Rosewell), tells about how ten Boom’s final days on earth were marked by the same love, service, and prayer-centeredness that had characterized her for decades.

Even when a stroke in her eighties rendered her bedridden and mute, ten Boom found ways of serving and loving God and others. Her relational impact came from a life surrendered to God, in which her daily question was how she could love the next person she saw.

Ten Boom had the words “My times are in Your hands” (from Psalm 31:15) posted on her wall. Her life demonstrates that God is not limited by our limitations—whether declining health or another kind. He often works in and through our weaknesses (2 Corinthians 12:9–10). When ten Boom was in a Nazi concentration camp in midlife, she frequently risked her safety to tell others about Christ, never knowing if she had another day to live.

For all of us, it is wise to live each day as though it were our last and to treat each person as though we may never see them again. Living well and without regrets means:

• Not leaving unfinished business in relationships
• Not deferring our love to another day (when it’s more convenient or we are less busy)
• Speaking our love, gratitude, and forgiveness today—or at the earliest opportunity we get

Recalibrating Your Relationships

Take time today to recalibrate your relationships—the vertical one first, then the horizontal ones.

Relationship with God:

• How often do you spend time with Him?
• Is your communication one-sided, or do you take time to listen to Him (in prayer and by reading His Word)?

Relationships with People:

• Do you have any relationships that are weak or stagnant and in need of nurturing?
• Do you have any unfinished business—bitterness or unforgiveness that you need to confess (first to God, then to others if possible)?
• Are you investing God’s Word into other people? If not, what’s one way you can do so?

Was this Plan helpful? We adapted this Plan from Recalibrate Your Life: Navigating Transitions with Purpose and Hope by Kenneth Boa and Jenny Abel.

Adapted from Recalibrate Your Life: Navigating Transitions with Purpose and Hope. Copyright ©2023 by Kenneth Boa and Jenny Abel. Used by permission. For more information, please visit https://www.ivpress.com/recalibrate-your-life .