19/09/2026
GOD DOES NOT LIKE SECOND PLACE
A professor once walked into a classroom carrying an empty jar, some large stones, a handful of smaller pebbles, sand, and a jug of water.
He set the jar on the table and began with the water. He poured it in and kept pouring until the jar was full. Before he could introduce the stones, the pebbles, or the sand, the water had already claimed every inch of space. Nothing else could go in.
He emptied the jar and started over, but this time he changed the order. First the large stones went in. Then the smaller pebbles, settling into the gaps between the stones. Then the sand, filling what little space remained. Finally, he poured the water again, and this time it disappeared into the jar without a trace, finding room in spaces too small for anything else to reach.
The jar had not grown larger. Only the order had changed.
That is a sobering lesson about life. We complain that we do not have enough time, enough money, enough strength, enough room for God. But often the problem is not what we have. The problem is the order in which we have arranged what we have.
This is where most of us struggle with God. We put the water in first: our jobs, our business, our money, our family, our pleasure, our education, our ambitions. We fill the jar with everything else, and only then do we try to fit God in. By then there is no space left. God becomes what we do if there is time. God becomes what we give if something remains. God becomes what we consider after the plans are already made.
Scripture teaches a different order. God must be the stone that goes in first. Once He is in place, everything else, your family, your career, your ambitions, your enjoyment, can find real room around Him. None of these things is the problem. The problem is only ever what we let go in first.
Jesus did not say, "Seek the kingdom of God once everything else has been settled." He said:
"But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness." Matthew 6:33
God is not asking to be one of the stones in your jar. He is asking to be the first one. Once He is placed there, everything else finds its proper fit around Him. That principle runs through the whole of Scripture, and nowhere is it tested more sharply than in the story of a widow with almost nothing left to give.
1. GOD MUST COME FIRST EVEN WHEN WE HAVE VERY LITTLE
1 Kings 17:8-16
A famine had stripped the land bare. This widow was gathering sticks to prepare what she believed would be her last meal before she and her son starved. She told Elijah plainly:
"I have not a cake, but an handful of meal in a barrel, and a little oil in a cruse."
She had almost nothing to pour into her jar. Yet Elijah's instruction was startling:
"Make me thereof a little cake first, and bring it unto me, and after make for thee and for thy son."
Notice the word: FIRST.
She could have reasoned the way most of us reason. "Let me feed myself and my son first. If anything is left, I will give it to the prophet." That would have been pouring the water in before the stone, filling the jar with her own survival before making room for God. Instead, she trusted the word she had been given, and she put God first with the one handful of meal and the last drops of oil she had left.
Scripture records what happened next:
"The barrel of meal wasted not, neither did the cruse of oil fail."
The miracle did not begin when the meal multiplied. It began the moment she chose the right order. God first, and the provision followed.
2. GOD DESERVES A PLACE IN OUR HOUSE AND IN OUR DAILY LIFE
2 Kings 4:8-10
The Shunammite woman had no famine to survive. She simply noticed a man of God passing through her town and did something about it. She said to her husband:
"Let us make a little chamber... and let us set for him there a bed, and a table, and a stool, and a candlestick."
She built a room. She deliberately made space that had not existed before.
Most of our homes already have room for everything else. Room for television, for phones, for business, for visitors, for entertainment. The jar of our daily life fills up with all of it long before we think to ask whether there is any space left for God.
The Shunammite woman shows us something the widow's story only implies: God must not merely be acknowledged. He must be accommodated. If God is first, He needs an actual place in our homes, our schedules, our conversations, the way we raise our children and spend our evenings. You cannot put God first in your heart and consistently put Him last in your calendar. Sooner or later, your calendar tells the truth your words tried to avoid.
3. GOD LOOKS AT WHETHER WE GIVE HIM THE FIRST
Genesis 4:1-7
Cain and Abel both brought offerings. Both men showed up. Both men gave something. Yet Scripture draws a sharp line between them, and the line is not effort. It is order.
Of Abel we read that he:
"brought of the firstlings of his flock and of the fat thereof."
The word is firstlings. Abel did not merely put something into the jar. He put the first thing in, and the best of it. Cain simply "brought of the fruit of the ground," with no such marker of priority attached.
This is why giving cuts far deeper than money. It is a question about the heart's true order. What comes first when your income arrives? What comes first the moment you wake? What governs your plans before anything else gets a vote? The deeper question was never "What did you give God?" It has always been, "Where did God come in your order?"
4. GOD TAUGHT HIS PEOPLE TO GIVE HIM THE FIRST
Exodus 23:19; Proverbs 3:9
God told Israel:
"The first of the firstfruits of thy land thou shalt bring into the house of the LORD thy God."
And Proverbs 3:9 adds:
"Honour the LORD with thy substance, and with the firstfruits of all thine increase."
God could have simply said, "Give Me something." Instead the command, in substance, was, "Give Me the first." The first matters because it fixes the order for everything that comes after it. When God receives the first, everything else in your life takes its place behind Him, whether you announce it or not.
That principle has not expired. Do not hand God what survives after everything else has been paid, spent, and satisfied. Do not hand Him the time left over after entertainment has taken its cut, or the money left over after personal wants are met, or the energy left over after the day has already worn you down. God does not want to be the recipient of our leftovers.
5. JESUS MADE THE PRINCIPLE CLEAR: SEEK FIRST
Matthew 6:25-33
Jesus understood the pull of material anxiety better than anyone who has ever preached on it. He knew we would worry about food, clothing, housing, money, and the future. Yet after naming those concerns honestly, He fixed the order:
"But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you."
Not second. Not third. Not once convenient. First.
God first does not mean your family becomes unimportant. It means your family occupies its proper place. God first does not mean your work becomes unimportant, or that money is evil. It means neither is permitted to occupy God's place. The issue was never whether we have these things. The issue is where we put them in the jar.
6. GOD DOES NOT WANT WHAT IS LEFT OVER
This is where the lesson stops being theoretical and becomes personal.
Sometimes God gets the leftovers. After we have spent our best energy elsewhere, we give Him what remains. After we have spent our money on everything else, we ask what we can spare for Him. After social media, entertainment, and business have taken our attention, we have little left for His word. After the plans are already made, we ask Him to bless them. We fill the jar with everything else first, and then try to squeeze God into whatever space is left.
But God says, "Seek ye first." He does not want to compete with everything else for space in your life. He wants to be the order from which everything else is measured. Put God first. Then put everything else where it belongs.
7. WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO PUT GOD FIRST?
God first in our worship.
We do not treat worship as optional, something moved or skipped the moment anything else demands the hour.
God first in our obedience.
We do not obey God only when His command happens to agree with our plans.
God first in our decisions.
Before we ask, "What do I want?" we ask, "What does God want?"
God first in our resources.
We remember that everything we hold ultimately came from His hand.
God first in our family.
We refuse to trade faithfulness to God for material provision for our households.
God first in our ambitions.
Success is never allowed to grow so large that it crowds out our relationship with God.
God first in our time.
We deliberately carve out room for prayer, study, worship, and service, not by accident, but on purpose.
God first in our character.
When nobody is watching, God still comes first. That is where the truth about our priorities actually lives.
Conclusion: Put the Stone First
Go back to the professor's jar. The water was never the problem. The sand was never the problem. The pebbles were never the problem. The problem was always the order. When water went in first, there was no room left for anything else. When the stone went in first, everything else found its place, down to the very last drop of water.
That is the lesson God has been teaching mankind throughout Scripture. The widow of Zarephath put God first with the little she had left. The Shunammite woman built a room for Him where none had existed. Abel brought the first, not merely an offering. Israel was commanded to bring the firstfruits, not the surplus. Then Jesus gathered the whole principle into a single sentence:
"Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness."
So ask yourself honestly today: what went into your jar first? Your business? Your money? Your family? Your career? Your comfort? Your ambition? Your pleasure? Or God?
Your family has its place. Your business has its place. Your career, your money, your ambitions all have their place. But none of them was ever meant to be the first stone. That place belongs to God alone, and He will not share it, trade it, or accept it after the fact.
If you have been living with God as the water rather than the stone, today is the moment to empty the jar and start again. Not to rearrange a few things and hope for the best, but to take everything you have been pouring in first, your time, your money, your affections, your plans, and set it aside long enough to put God where He belongs. That is what repentance actually looks like: not sorrow alone, but a new order for an old life.
Put God in first. And watch how everything else you were afraid of losing finally finds the room it needed all along.
God does not like second place.
Thanks for spending your time here.
Dr. Michael Udam serves the church of Christ meeting at Ukpagada Ogoja Nigeria
