Seek first

This line closes a long passage about anxiety: food, drink, clothing, tomorrow. The answer to anxiety is a reordering. Put the one thing first and the many things fall into a place that no longer frightens you.

"First" is the whole instruction, and it is a matter of order rather than quantity. The day still contains work and meals and the people who need you. But before all of them, before the phone, there is a turning toward what is deepest. The Desert Fathers called this the first-fruits of the day: the hour that belongs to God before it belongs to anything else.