What’s Really Essential?

Being a mom of three young active boys, I find myself always multitasking. I mean the kind of multitasking where I’m participating in a zoom meeting, listening to my son’s virtual lesson, and helping my three years old son write his numbers. And now that we are in a pandemic, multitasking has taken on a whole new meaning.

Like many of you, my worlds have collided. No longer do I leave my house to report to work or my children attend in person school. Instead, we are all working, learning, and living at home. I used to leave work and have a pretty calm drive home before everything started to get busy in the evenings. Not now. Everything is all happening at once. Granted, I am not complaining. I appreciate the opportunity to be able to work from home and have all of my loved ones together. But the demand is unreal. With so much going on, how do you manage to find the time to study God’s word, spend quiet time in prayer, and not have your time divided between God and the things you need to do?

I often think of myself as having Martha’s syndrome. I’m always busy and worried about getting everything done. Do you ever desire to slow down, but you can’t because you see everything that needs to be done? In Luke 10:38-42, we find Jesus visiting Mary and Martha. They both welcome Jesus into their home, but Mary is content with sitting at Jesus’ feet while her sister Martha is busy with all of her serving responsibilities. Martha notices Mary sitting at his feet and asks Jesus to tell Mary to help her. Martha did not get the reply that she desired. Instead, Jesus says to her, “Martha, Martha, you are worried and bothered and anxious about so many things; but only one thing is necessary, for Mary has chosen the good part which will not be taken away from her.”

What can we learn from this text? There are times in our busyness where you may feel the Holy Spirit tugging at you to come and away with Him. Jesus was often found getting away to spend time with the Lord. We have to do the same. Some of us are waiting on God to shed light on our circumstances, but God is waiting on us. We cannot give God a drive-by prayer. We cannot pull up, tell God what we want, and wait for our order to arrive. That is not how it works. We have a God that desires relationship and intimacy with us. We cannot truly hear what we need to hear unless we sacrifice our time with him.

Although Jesus’ response to Martha was not what she wanted to hear, I’m sure it rattled her core. Spending time in the presence of the Lord cannot be substituted for anything else. Time with the Lord cannot be taken away from you. It is that valuable!

I have tried to split myself between spending time with the Lord and finishing up on something that has to be done. One hundred percent of the time, I hear the Lord say to me that he doesn’t want me to split my time with him. He wants all of my attention. He wants me to be fully engaged and fully present. How else can we truly experience times of refreshing? How else can we truly hear an answer to prayer or a solution to our problem? We cannot pour out to others if we are running on fumes. Let’s all take a lesson from Mary and focus on what’s essential; sitting at Jesus’ feet.

How do you find time to sit at his feet? Please like and subscribe to my blog.