Ezra Taft Benson was a powerful thinker and speaker.  Several of his quotes rank in my top 10.  This one will help us know how to prioritize our time.  This is a huge issue for most of us, I think.  Modern-day conveniences have created space for many, many other things that aren’t essential to survival.  This extra ‘space’ is a phenomena of the last century.  If we are not careful, we will unwittingly fill our time with things of no consequence.  Satan has helped us craft some very clever distractions.  I am constantly taking inventory of my to-do list, taking kids in and out of lessons, dropping good opportunities for unstructured time at home, and generally staking my claim to my children by keeping them at home where the greatest influences in their lives are their parents and their siblings.  Pres. Benson’s words are giving me the courage to do this:

When we put God first, all other things fall into their place or drop out of our lives.  Our love of the Lord will govern the claims for our affection, the demands on our time, the interests we pursue and the order of our priorities.

Whether we like it or not, the activities that we actually engage in speak volumes about our priorities.  Living deliberately is not easy in our culture.  Putting God first, very, very first, will help us to make all of the hard decisions that lay before us.