Seek First: What My Wife's "No" Taught Me About Putting God First

What's up, champions? Here's the question I want you to sit with before you read another word: if God is really first in your life, what does your calendar say?

Not what you'd tell a stranger at church. Not what you posted last Sunday. Your actual calendar — this week's — where your hours went and who got them. That's Episode 6 of Getting Real with Real. No guest this time. Just me, the Word, and a story I don't tell often.

The Greek Behind "Seek First"

Matthew 6:33 doesn't stand alone. It's the hinge of a longer passage that starts at verse 25 and runs through verse 34 — Jesus addressing worry over food, clothing, and the body, pointing to the birds and the lilies as proof that God already knows what you need. Verse 32 names the alternative most people live in: the Gentiles, the pagans, chasing after all these things in anxious, striving lives because they don't trust a Father to know their needs. Verse 33 is Jesus interrupting that cycle: don't live like that. Seek first.

Two words carry the weight of that verse in the original Greek. "Seek" is zeteo — to pursue, to chase after. "First" is proto — first in order and first in importance. Put those together and Jesus isn't saying, "make a little room for me if you've got time." He's saying pursue me first, before everything else starts fighting for your attention.

How many of y'all would agree you've already got God as number one? Mhmm. Now here's the uncomfortable part. It's easy to say God is number one. But what are our actions showing?

The Call I Said Yes to Before I Finished the Sentence

About two years ago, I got called into my pastor's office. He told me the church had been praying, and they felt I was called to be the pastor for our Coachella campus. I didn't hesitate. Isaiah 6:8 — "here am I, send me" — let's go, I'm in.

He asked, "Don't you have to talk to your wife about that?" I said, yeah, I'll talk to her, but I'm going. God calls me, I'm going.

When She Said No

I came back the next week. He asked what my wife said. I said, "She said no way, it's not happening — but I'm still going. It's good, we're going."

He looked at me and said, "You do realize next to God, your wife is your second most important minister?"

At 61 years old, for the first time in my life, somebody was telling me I don't get to do what I want to do. I'll be honest with you — I went through a whole range of emotions. Anger. Frustration. I started questioning everything. Maybe that's not the woman I'm supposed to be married to. Maybe that's not the wife I'm supposed to have. How can she not see what I'm seeing? I'm hearing God all over this.

What God Was Actually Correcting in Me

I came full circle to what God was really showing me — He started dealing with my priorities. He reminded me: before I'm a pastor, I'm His son. And after my relationship with God, the greatest ministry He's ever entrusted to me is my marriage.

My wife wasn't standing between me and my calling. She was part of my calling.

Sometimes putting God first means go — that's Isaiah 6:8. Sometimes it means wait. And sometimes it means having the humility to say, "God, maybe what I was wanting wasn't what you wanted."

What Your Calendar Says About What's Actually First

Let's get practical for a second, because this is where the message stops being about me and starts being about you.

Think about your kids. Be honest about the actual minutes you gave them today. For a long time, mine got about ten seconds — "love you, hope you had a great night" — and that was the whole conversation.

Now run your own numbers. Say you're giving 45 hours a week to work. Say you're giving another chunk to sleep. Add it up, and you've still got dozens of hours a week that aren't accounted for anywhere.

That's not bedtime. That's lack of timing.

You don't have to work every waking hour. God didn't make you do that. God didn't put those nice cars and those nice boats on your heart — you did that. So the real question isn't whether you have time for God. It's what you've been letting go first instead.

Your One Action Step

Don't just read this and nod, champion. Tonight, open your actual calendar — the one on your phone — and block real, specific time for God first this week. Not "when I get a minute." A time, a day, written down, before anything else gets to claim it. That's how you realign a calendar that's been telling on you.

Listen to the full message on Episode 6 of Getting Real with Real: https://gettingrealwithreal.transistor.fm/

If this one landed on you the way it landed on me while I was living it, don't sit on it. Share it with a man who needs to hear it, and if you're ready to actually put God first — on your calendar, not just on your lips — start a conversation with our coaching team here: https://www.realandrewsofficial.com

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