My 3 Vows

A few weeks ago I was in a meeting with one of my mentors and he shared something with me about how we order our lives as leaders. Here was the approach:

I have made 3 significant vows in my life...and they happened in this order:

1. 1987- Salvation/Baptism: I committed to follow Jesus as soon as I could understand what it meant to me.
2. 2002- Marriage: I committed my entire life and love to Tricia Rivera (now Kaye) promising to love her like Jesus loves the church...until death separates us.
3. 2009- Ordination: Taking the call of God on my life very seriously, I was ordained for a lifetime of gospel ministry.

In the same manner, I must continue to maintain this priority order in how I live these commitments out:

1. Jesus must always remain first. Without intimacy with Him, the next two commitments will suffer.
2. Tricia is after Jesus. It may be easy to keep her from rising to number one...but truth be told it is hard to prevent her from dropping to number three. She will always come before the church. (Kids come right after her. Yes, AFTER her.)
3. Gospel ministry. Kingdom expansion. After numbers one and two are in proper shape, number three becomes a successful joy! I must never steal from the first two to feed the third.

What vows have you made? How are you doing at ordering your world with the most important commitments first?