Priority Guilt & Counting The Cost
Did I prioritize the right things to please God so that I can look in the mirror and not be repulsed by the person I see looking back at me?
This question is THE question I ask myself many times a day to ensure I am making proper choices of what to do with my time. During evaluation periods, like the beginning of a New Year, a job change, a health change, or any major life change, this question screams even louder inside me.
This question is a guiding light and is the fire, the major driving force, of my life. The reason this question is so important to me is because I know God only wants good things for me and those around me. He knows how He made me, and He knows how everything works together in a way that brings good to all humanity and creation. So knowing that He is that loving makes me want to strongly desire what He wants since He is totally for me. Since He is totally for me, wanting something besides what God wants would be counterproductive, a waste of time and resources, and would lead to emotional, spiritual, and physical pain and death. I am living proof of that pain and death; well, except that I am still alive.
Yeah, I have paid the painful price enough times of people choosing something other than God’s loving way and choosing that myself to get the point that any other way than God’s way creates a hellish experience right here on Earth for me to live with. Avoiding severe pain and disappointment by poor choices can be an extremely strong motivator.
My goal with this post, my beloved fellow human, is to help inspire you through my own story of how I approach making priorities and finding the strength to do so. I also want to share the painful struggle that happens inside myself as I choose priorities because I think most of us have these struggles. My hope is that you will be able to work through any ‘priority guilt’- feeling guilty for the priorities you have made so far- and that you will acquire tools to count the cost that ALWAYS comes with any priority you choose.
A priority always costs time and resources, even the good ones. Take time to count the cost of what good or bad things you will get from the time and resources you spend.
A Snapshot In Time
Right now, I am writing on the Gregorian calendar’s New Year. Happy belated New Year to you all whenever you read this 😁🎉.
On this day, something happened that should not bother me, but it did. I lost my strongest financial supporter to the ministries I oversee. It should not bother me because God is my provider, and He chooses to provide in any way He sees fit. So, I realized that I had an issue with a lack of faith in believing that He will just shift how my family and I are supported or He will say I have enough for whatever He has called me to learn and do without providing more. It is His choice. I either believe God provides abundantly for me to do good works for The Kingdom, just like He provides for ALL of His children, or I don’t. I believe what The Bible says on this topic, or I don’t:
2 Peter 1:3- His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence,
Also, you can read 1 Peter 4:10, Philippians 2:13, Ephesians 4:12, Hebrews 13:20-21, 2 Timothy 3:17.
It’s a SUPER good thing that this person quit supporting so that this lack of faith has been revealed!
I just shudder to think about all the hidden stuff left inside myself that has not yet found the stability of faith in God, which brings peace. But hey, at least I have this small part of my lack of faith to work on. It’s a total blessing that it is revealed because God allows these things to come up because He is about to help them be healed! Praise be to our amazing God/Father/Wise Teacher!
But losing this supporter also strongly brought up my main question again:
Did I prioritize the right things to please God so that I can look in the mirror and not be repulsed by the person I see looking back at me?
Did I make wrong choices of priorities that led to my main supporter feeling that it was time to shift their funds? Did I not serve them properly for God? Or is this just a move of God for the person and for myself to shift things for His glory?
God shifts things regularly to keep us growing and finish the work He has started in us. Or maybe I am not properly giving what I am called to give to the ministries God has put into my hands in prayer, time, finances, and work? Are my priorities off? Should I feel ‘priority guilt,’ and have I earned this negative ‘reward’ of losing financial support for disobedience?
Looking at myself. Guilt is a painful ‘reward’ when I spend my time and resources on poor choices.
Guilt, Guilt, and More Guilt
Maybe some of you can relate to this. I was brought up by church, family, and the society I grew up around to feel guilty for everything. God was not pleased with me ever because I never got it right enough. And God would not even be happy with me if I did not feel guilty! So, no matter what, I was stuck with guilt, guilt, guilt. Is that messed up, or what?!!! Talk about living a hellish experience on Earth!
Don’t get me wrong, I do believe in having guilt to motivate AT FIRST to look sincerely at what one might have done inappropriately. This is healthy. When we do things inappropriately to loving God with everything we have and loving our neighbors AS ourselves, we should feel guilty (Matthew 22:37, Luke 10:27, Mark 12:30).
But what is NOT healthy is to be manipulated and controlled by others using guilt trips on you to keep you bound to feel bad about yourself so that you might do what they want you to do, or at least make you feel powerless so you do nothing and you are out of their way on their power trip.
And it is definitely severe religious abuse for those said people to then project their disgusting witchcraft onto God and teach that God wants to keep you on a guilt trip so that you will obey Him! I hate this lie with a vengeance!
God loves you. He does NOT want to keep you in guilt: He sent His Son to get you OUT of guilt! Read it, weep, and be crushed, you Spirit of Guilt from the Satanic realm!:
Isaiah 53: 10-12
10 Yet it was the will of the LORD to crush him;
He has put him to grief,
When his soul makes an offering for guilt,
He shall see his offspring; he shall prolong his days;
The will of the LORD shall prosper in his hand.
11 Out of the anguish of his soul he shall see and be satisfied;
By his knowledge shall the righteous one, my servant,
Make many to be accounted righteous,
And he shall bear their iniquities.
The offering of God’s Son, Jesus, took our guilt in that offering. We now have peace with God and with ourselves even though someone else who is guiltless pays the price. Feel the guilt and then let it go with this knowledge!
What Was Meant For Evil Worked Out For Good
All these questions I have of if I have done something wrong with my priorities are good and helpful. But ONLY if the questions are coming from wanting to please God BECAUSE He loves me and wants what is best for me. The questions become toxic and pull me away from God when I bite into the idea that God wants me to feel never-ending guilt to please Him.
I learned to ask myself many questions and walk on eggshells from being abused and controlled by people. But instead of their abuse making me feel more distant from God forever through a continual guilt trip, I got to take that strength I gained of asking myself many questions and evaluating myself and couple it with God loves me! Evil intent worked out for good!
Do you know why this is so crucial to no longer ask questions from, ‘God wants me to stay in guilt to please Him?’ It’s because you end up with a sick relational dynamic with God: You think you have to be good enough to be accepted and loved. Your relationship with God ends up being built on the ‘fake fear’ of God. Fake fear is when you are terrified of God and just want to please Him so that He won’t hurt you more (aka. Perfectionism). Or it can mean you choose to use your fear to completely cut out God from your life, which can look like, ‘I don’t believe there is a God’, or ‘I hate God’, or ‘I believe there is a God but I don’t think He is what people say He is so I will just go do what I want and not worry about pleasing this God I don’t know.’
God Loves Me! Am I Pleasing Him With My Priorities?
Now I get to healthily evaluate if I should feel guilty for losing my main supporter, looking at the priorities I know God has for a human for their own good. He wants me to prosper in all things.
Here is my set of questions again that I have laid for myself to evaluate against my priorities:
Did I make wrong choices of priorities that led to my main supporter feeling that it was time to shift their funds? Did I not serve them properly for God? Or is this just a move of God for the person and for myself to shift things for His glory? God shifts things regularly to keep us growing and finish the work He has started in us. Or maybe I am not properly giving what I am called to give to the ministries God has put into my hands in prayer, time, finances, and work? Are my priorities off? Should I feel ‘priority guilt,’ and have I earned this negative ‘reward’ of losing financial support for disobedience?
The Priorities to Evaluate Against
Here are Godly priorities as I understand them at this moment:
“God first” according to Matthew 22:37, Luke 10:27, and Mark 12:30. Am I spending time developing a healthy relationship with The One who created me and actually is for my good above all others? Spiritual faith, hope, and love are grown through prayer, meditation, learning, practicing what I learn, giving gratitude to Him, and thinking about how awesome He is and how much He loves me and everyone else. Faith, hope, and love are the ONLY things you take with you into the next life, according to 1 Corinthians 13:8-13.
Evaluating myself as honestly as possible: Yes, I am doing these things regularly at the moment. May God show me if there is something I am missing or can do better.
“Physical health” 1 Corinthians 3:16 reads, ‘Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you? If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy him. For God’s temple is holy, and you are that temple.’ This means I do not honor God if I do not take care of The Temple He has created me to be for His Presence. If my body is broken down because I am not taking care of it, then I am appropriately guilty. If it breaks down for other reasons, well, then I just get to work on faith that by His stripes, I WAS healed, and I don’t have to ask for forgiveness first. (Isaiah 53:5- But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; The chastisement for our peace was upon Him, AND BY HIS STRIPES WE ARE HEALED.)
Evaluating myself on how I am taking care of my health: I have had added health issues for the past three months that I have been fighting. This has taken a lot of my time. From what I can tell, one day in September I pigged out on candy because there was no appropriate food in the office where I was working. I was caught with my body needing to eat badly and nothing but sweets to eat. This only one day of bad transgression started a domino effect of health issues, one after another, for three months. I reaped what I sowed. Everyone has paid for my poor choice dearly. I have had to rest a lot more. I have had to focus on doing as many good things for my health as possible to get well. I have had to spend extra time working on my faith that God already healed me through what Jesus did. By His stripes, I was healed! I used this time also to focus on my faith to strengthen my belief in my son’s full restoration from autism, seizure disorder, deformed foot from injury, scoliosis, and his lack of communication. There were lots of pronouncements and blessings coming from my heart and mouth that we already have our healing and stay healed from what Jesus has already done!
God, forgive me for eating things that my body, Your Temple, rejected vehemently. And thank You that You have forgiven me already through Your Son’s sacrifice!
Evaluating myself further, I would say that I still exercised to the best of my ability throughout this time. And I rested appropriately. I had to be careful of what I ate for many years now and this time was no different. Plus, I spent even more time on my spiritual development with the downtime.
“Family is next” God gave me a family to take care of for Him. As it is written in 1 Timothy 5:8- If anyone does not provide for his own, and especially his own household, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever.
Evaluation time: In my case, the ones that God has for me to care for at the moment are my partner and my 29-year-old special needs son. Well, He is God’s son first, who I take care of for Him.
I have supported my partner to the best of my ability. I feel clean before God on this. If there is something I am missing, Lord, help me see it clearly so that I can continue to improve in faith, hope, and love.
And for my son, I have gone all out as far as I know. I have been faithful to pray for him and over him. I have made sure to do his therapies consistently that God has graciously provided for his development. I have spent time with him to educate him and direct him into love. I feel clean in this area and am open to seeing where I can improve.
“Developing and using the gifts that God gave me.” Gifts were given to me to do good works because God has loved me and given me so much, and I want to share, NOT because I have to please Him or He will crush me. 1 Corinthians chapters 12 and 13 are crucial to read to understand this priority better.
This evaluation of using my gifts has three areas that were not included in the other priorities.
Here they are in order of importance.
Main job, which brings in the main income to help support the family. Since I must consider family a higher priority according to God and it brings in the most money to support us, then my main job must be prioritized as a place to use and develop my gifts.
My evaluation is that this area suffered from my illnesses, with some of them being contagious. And I have already repented of this situation. But I did work as I could. New videos were made and uploaded to the company’s social media sites. I attended meetings to direct those on the social media team. There were Human Resource meetings to direct or be a part of. And my job includes encouraging all employees specifically in the way they need it. Then there were the emails and other responsibilities I took care of, too. At least the company made their goal of over 30,000 views on their YouTube channel. That is an accomplishment I am responsible for trying to attain. Oh, and I went during closing hours to bless and pray for the company and everyone who works there out loud with permission from its owner, who happens to be my partner. I think that was the best ministry I could ever do for this company that has blessed me and my family.
Two online ministries to oversee, maintain, and develop that I am honored to take care of for the glory of God.
Evaluation time, come on! With the strength that God has given me for the moment, I have had to make some difficult decisions with these two responsibilities since I am limited, like everyone else, to 24 hours a day. Straddling both ministries are the responsibilities of praying for the ministries, taking care of emails, and doing Zoom call ministry for the few that God calls me to support and encourage consistently (I have to really pray to see who to help and who not to), and a weekly Zoom fellowship to facilitate—these I have done to the best of my ability. I feel clean before God in this area because I have gone slow to continually seek His direction on these activities.
The part that I am struggling with is the other responsibilities of these two ministries. I have newsletters, blog posts, YouTube videos, and books to write. And the websites are always needing something new done with them. These tasks of the ministry have been difficult to juggle since my hours in the day have been well spent on all the other priorities that I feel God has given me to consider first. But still, I have been busy in producing content. And you know what? I cannot even consider developing content to help others if I am not living what I am ‘preaching.’ I have personally seen too many ministries put out amazing materials and help in amazing ways, but the staff is not able to actually live by proper godly principles and priorities. It turns my stomach to remember the examples I have seen firsthand where those ministering in their gifts were exploited to build a ministry through the sacrifice of proper spiritual priorities for themselves! It turns my stomach further to consider how I was brainwashed and forced to put my life priorities out of order, sacrificing in ways that hurt me spiritually, mentally, physically, emotionally, financially, as well as in education. My eyes are tearing up, and there is great grief from these improperly forced or given sacrifices to The Lord. These types of sacrifices are not pleasing to The Lord, and I expect that probably those who stay in that mode will be told, “Go away! I never knew you!” even though these people thought they were doing good ministry. Matthew 7:21-23 comes to mind:
21 “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven,
22 On that day, many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’
23 And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you, depart from me you workers of lawlessness.’
A whole Bible chapter comes to mind that makes me very careful and sober over my life choices and how I serve; it is Matthew 25. It is too big to quote here, but it is rich and very important information for all Believers to consider regularly. One thing that sticks out for me in this conversation is where Christ speaks that if you do not take care of the most weak and downtrodden in our world, then He will turn you away. It hits home personally because my son is one of those weak ones. He cannot take care of himself. Serving him is serving my Master. It also hits home because I have seen the families of those who are working in their particular ministries who have become the most weak and downtrodden and forgotten by the humans who were given charge over them.
One example of serious abuse that I personally saw was an assistant pastor who was paid such low wages and was working so much that his wife had holes in her underwear so bad that they were useless. They sometimes had very meager meals because of not having enough money. They sacrificed many, many things because this ministry used them up and was not willing to provide for them properly, but instead, this church wanted a bigger building and a bigger parking lot.
Make no mistake, though! We are ALL in ministry! Even if you are responsible for supporting a ‘secular job,’ YOU ARE IN MINISTRY! If you said Jesus is your Lord and Savior, you also said I accept being in ministry with the gifts that God has put in me. And EVERYONE is born with gifts for the edification and uplifting of humans. There are NO exceptions. This means how you treat all that you are responsible for is important as you are taking care of it for The Lord and Creator of all.
Now, back to my own evaluation of myself considering all these things, I chose to use my limited time to keep a promise that my deceased husband gave back in 2014 and did not find and take the time to do. He promised a lot of people he would write a second book on how to get closer to God. He was gifted in researching and sharing about Bible Prophecy. In his decades of studying, he was led to see that the center of Bible Prophecy is showing what happens to those who love God with their whole heart, might, and souls and love their neighbors as themselves, versus those people who don’t. He knew the only way to help prepare people to be ready for end-time events and/or their deaths was to help them focus and develop love.
He was going to co-author that book with me since some of my gifts from God fall into relationship issues with God, self, and others. I laid down some of the time that is used to create materials to help The Body of Christ mature in both ministries, to keep this promise. The book is finally finished. What is not finished and is out of my hands is the finishing of the website to host the book. I can only pray that God unsticks some things to get that finished to launch the book.
I am so excited to share this book with you soon!
We also promised that the book would be given in a free version by ebook. I will keep that promise because this book is so necessary for The Body as it attacks a main root of why people get stuck in their relationship with God.
So, I have still done quite a few blog posts throughout this year and I have only done a few short videos for this website and ministry that you are reading from now because of the book.
For the other ministry I am responsible for, I have only posted a few blog posts as I felt led by God to make them. Those blog posts were rich in information needed to focus on prophecy and preparing for our Messiah to come. Making more posts would not have been responsible to make for the readers or for myself because I would just repeat over and over what I shared in the posts I already created.
I do not push out content just to tickle the ears and keep people busy. I make it when I am led by God to do so. Without His blessing, anything I make will not produce lasting spiritual fruits in myself or those I serve. It will not have His Spirit on it. I hate building anything that does not help everyone grow in healthy faith, hope, and love. Everyone includes me and my family as well.
So, there have been some serious sacrifices made to get some things done for these ministries. But I can look God in the face, and see myself in the mirror, feeling like I made the proper sacrifices based on what I know God’s priorities to be.
These choices of priorities are probably what has made my main financial supporter stop donating to the ministries I serve. I believe it was the proper sacrifice since my main goal is to help as many people as possible in their relationship with God, themselves, and everyone else. The book will be very helpful toward that goal. And money and support from people are not my main goal. The goals of these ministries are to serve The Lord by serving as many people as possible in a responsible manner. They exist to educate, equip, encourage, exhort, and most importantly, love all fellow humans because of the love He has shown each of us.
The last area of “using my gifts”
Ministering directly to others around me after serving my family. It seems that this one priority might look out of order to some. Shouldn’t it be BEFORE serving the two online ministries? I mean, isn’t it more important to minister to those physically around you than to minister to people around the world who are not close? I think this order of priorities might change depending on your personal calling and your personal gifts. In my case, I live in Germany, where I am still learning the language. My ability to serve German-speaking people is severely handicapped without enough language skills. God definitely put me in this land and sustains me here, so there is something I am to do to bless Germany for The Lord for sure! I do pray for Germany and its people. I love them so much. God has used them to bless my family very deeply, and I fully intend to repay their kindness! There are two ways I am working on this last priority of ministering directly to others around me. One way is by being serious about learning some German every day. I have a 558 streak of learning German on the language learning app, Duolingo. I am learning little by little as I find time after all my other priorities. But I am serious and dedicated. The other way I am working on blessing Germany is by desiring to get the book I just wrote into German. The German version will be free too.
An honorable mention of what I do to work with people directly is that I definitely focus on loving and serving each person in front of me as I am inspired. Each person in my vicinity is important to me, and my heart is open to love them for The Lord.
Am I more concerned about the value of money than the value of the lessons that bring me to faith, hope, and love? Tough choice when you are hurting.
From Guilt to Faith and Hope: Counting The Cost
So, the conclusion of this whole evaluation is that I am not perfect and have made mistakes that affect everyone.
And I probably lost support because I chose to prioritize certain things over others. There was a cost to those choices. There is always a cost to choices, whether they are good or bad choices. It is unavoidable.
It does not matter who you are and how many more or fewer mistakes you make compared to someone else! It does not matter because the wages of sin are death, and only one sin gets you that same price as many of them. Death is death. That is the cost, according to Romans 6:23
23 For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Good priorities feel like they cost waaaay more than bad priorities. And bad priorities feel so good sometimes for so long until we pay the price after God has been extremely patient with us. Feelings are so very deceiving! In this temporary world, it may look like what I just explained is true that good costs more than bad. But there is an eternal world that we are a part of, and that world is everlasting! Whatever sacrifices you make for the temporary things, you will reap way more benefits in our Lord’s Eternal Kingdom. Don’t walk by sight but by faith in this, my loved fellow human.
I gave my life to The Lord. It is not mine any longer. Everything I have is His. I take care of it the best I can and continue to grow in doing better. So, even though I am not perfect and there are consequences that are paid for because of my imperfection on a physical level, I know that Christ’s sacrifice makes up for where I yet fall. Thankfully, spiritually, I have been found not guilty because of what Jesus did for us. And the physical stuff, where consequences may or may not take form, is temporary. The ministries I am responsible for will pass away as they are physical creations. But hopefully, they will have done their job to help build up The Body in the things that last forever. That makes them a success!
My guilt has been taken away after my lengthy evaluation and confessions to The Lord, which has been open to you so that you might follow this Biblical example. I then went to faith, which believes that I am forgiven, healed, and delivered after I confess my sins AND accept Christ’s perfect sacrifice to pay the wages of sin that I cannot ever pay. And so now I can have hope that all the things I break, as I am a human who is learning, God can make all things work for good for now and in the future forever. And this brings me to love. I love God more for His goodness. I love myself in a godly manner because I am taking His forgiveness by forgiving myself and forgiving all others. And I love my neighbors even more because I can now see how much God loves them like He loves me!
The conclusion of godly evaluation leads to release and freedom. But it might lead you first to weeping about your choices of priorities. It might have you reworking again and again your priorities, probing and testing and laying them down before God’s feet.
Ask yourself about your choices:
Is God first?
Do you take care of your (body) temple?
Is your family next?
Are you developing and using the gifts that God gave you?
Many times we allow ourselves to be led astray, to walk astray. It is definitely work on ourselves to choose God’s priorities, and we will fall many times. But the rewards are at the magnitude of the effort it requires. It leads to deep gratitude for what God has done for us through His Son. It leads you back into feeling the love of God and just feeling love! It leads to hope, knowing that God has incredible plans for your good now and into eternity!
Jeremiah 29:11-13
11 For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.
12 Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will hear you.
13 You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart.
My loved fellow humans, please share this post with those who you love. These spiritual tools are not taught as often as they should be. Let someone be a work buddy for you and do the evaluation of your life together with them. You can encourage one another that way. Or maybe you can even have a whole group of those you love to do this together with you. We need to grow in grace and knowledge of our Lord to find the peace we are looking for and the love and hope we all crave! Dare it!
We Are Owned By Love,
Katrina
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