Prioritizing the Big Rocks

(a Steve Orr Bible reflection)

Stephen Covey’s “Big Rocks” story goes something like this: An expert on priorities made a presentation to a group of high-powered overachievers. To illustrate his point, he placed large, fist-sized rocks into a one-gallon, wide-mouthed Mason jar. When no more of the rocks would fit, he asked, “Is the jar full?”

“Yes,” they called out. Clearly, no more of the rocks would fit into the jar.

He then poured in a large pail of pebbles, shaking the jar to settle them into the spaces between the big rocks. Again he asked, “Is the jar full?” This time, they were less certain in their response. 

Then he added sand until no more would fit, and asked, “Is the jar full, now?” No response.

Finally, he poured in water, only stopping when no more would go in. It was then obvious to everyone that the jar was, finally, full. Now he asked a different question, “What was the point of this illustration?”

One of the overachievers declared, “No matter how full your schedule, if you try really hard, you can always fit more into it!”

“No,” he replied, “That is not the point. The truth this illustration teaches us is: If you don’t put the big rocks in first, you’ll never get them in at all.”

The jar represents life and all that goes into it. The big rocks represent what is most important in our lives: our faith, education, finances, time with our loved ones, teaching or mentoring others. They represent our main goals in life, those activities we care about the most—the critical ones, the life-changing ones. 

The pebbles, sand, and water represent all the other matters that fill our lives: the good, the bad, the unanticipated, the anticipated, the less important, the frivolous.

No surprise, Covey advocates we do all we can to identify our Big Rocks. We can’t prioritize them if we don’t know what they are. And so, as Easter is upon us, I point out two very big rocks in Peter’s speech from this week’s Acts passage. They’re huge rocks, actually. And they’re problematic.

First, Peter says, “God shows no partiality, but in every nation anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him.” That’s definitely a Big Rock moment. Peter had just realized that God did not intend for His blessings to be restricted to the Jews—In fact, not restricted to any group, person, or place. 

Next, Peter says: “All the prophets testify about [Jesus] that everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name." Everyone everywhere who believes in Jesus. No qualifiers of race, skin color, gender, national origin, culture, political affiliation, physical characteristic, church affiliation. 

The two actual qualifiers are simple: fear God and do what is right, believe in Jesus. The unlimited nature of these words in Peter’s speech is astounding—Anyone. Everyone. 

Big Rocks. Some of the biggest. Definitely worth pondering. 

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The full Big Rocks story from Covey’s wonderful book, First Things First