What Is Your Favorite Pie?

January 13, 2022

If you were asked to make a pie chart of your life’s priorities what would it look like? First, you need to think about what your priorities are? Perhaps you think, "God must be my first priority, since this is a daily devotional. Next you list all the other priorities in your life: family, work, recreation, exercise and health, etc. Now you designate a percentage of the pie chart that represents how high a priority each item is. But how much of the chart should God be? Is twenty-five percent enough? No, make it fifty percent! That will impress the devotional writer!

If life were like a pie, mine would be a strawberry no bake cheesecake. It is made with cream cheese, sweetened condensed milk, and lemon juice, chilled in a graham cracker crust, and smothered with strawberries. And God would be a really big piece, at least fifty percent, which is an honor because I am very selfish with my cheesecake. Then all the other pieces would be smaller, as I try to fit all the pieces of my life in the pie pan.

So God gets fifty percent of the pie chart and all the rest of our priorities split the last fifty percent. Is that the way you actually live your life? Does God get fifty percent of your time, effort, money, and interest? Do you really spend half your life thinking about and serving God? Does your cell phone indicate this is true? What about time spent on social media? I struggle with this too.

For many years, I challenged myself and others to think of their faith in God as a first priority in life. Then all the other priorities should line up in order as we get the priorities of life right. But it just doesn’t seem to work that easy. The part of our life that focuses on God seems to always shrink as the other priorities suck up precious time. Then something happens in our lives, and we realize we have our priorities wrong, and we make a priority check and make some changes. But it isn’t long before the battle begins again. What can we do different to keep God in the right priority?

I think it is incorrect to see God as a piece of the pie to be fit into our lives. I propose a new image. Let us take God out of the pie altogether and think of God as the pie pan. At the risk of being trivial, I think there is power in thinking of God as the pie pan of life. Now we make our pie chart with all the other priorities making up the pieces of the pie, with God holding everything together. This puts God at the center of our lives, and every aspect of life revolves around God.

This what Psalm 24:1 reminds us as we read, “The earth is the LORD’s, and everything in it, the world, and all who live in it…” This is more than just what we believe, it is a description of the way things are. So often we believe we can have the world, or at least a small part of it, and we are easily deceived. God is the pie pan of life, and if we try to live without God holding our lives together we do so at our own detriment. God wants us to enjoy this wonderful pie that is our life, but to enjoy it fully, God must hold it all together.

Draw a circle, and make a pie chart of your life’s priorities, estimating the percentage of time, money, and effort you put into each one each week. Keep God out of the pie chart as a way of symbolizing God is at the center of each priority. Don’t be tempted to just think about this. Do it! You will learn something. Is God holding your family together? How? Do you let God be at the center of your work life? What are specific ways this is true? Now answer the same question for all the other priorities. Do you need to make some changes to put God at the center of some part/all of your life? List at least one change you would like to make. More than one would be better. May you experience meaning and purpose in your life as you live the life God has planned for you!