Focused

Submitted by: Scott Michael Ringo

She woke abruptly to the alarm clock “beeping its lungs out!” The hated alarm clock-was there anyone out there who looked forward to waking up to an alarm clock? Rolling out of bed, she walked over to her computer and sat down briefly to see who had emailed, blogged, or faxed her in the night. Her cell phone had a new text message reminding her about a get together for the singles at her church on Sunday. She headed to the kitchen to fix the “precious brew of beans.” Nothing was better than a good cup of coffee in the morning.

Back to the computer to check the chat rooms and who was on this morning. A couple quick IM’s to friends who were on her buddy list, then off to the shower to get ready for school. Where was her Romeo? Surely, the man of her dreams would show up any day now and sweep her off her feet. Yet, would she have any time for him between her friends, work, lunch dates, and weekend schedule? Hummm…she hurried off to school. Just before pulling into the school parking lot she prayed “God please help me get a good grade on my test today.”

In this world, everything fights for priority in our life. Work demands the most precious 40+ hours of our life. Sleep needs time, as do family, eating, and some relaxing. For singles, finding that elusive lover consumes time and energy unlike any other activity. Just those few items takes most of our time and there is little left, if any, to do anything else.

In church on Sundays, we are reminded that we have not given much time to God during the week, except for the prayers we prayed before meals. However, He is God and knows our thoughts even before we think them, right? God is the most available of all the people that we should focus our time on, yet He is the most overlooked. Maybe God should become only as available as we are to Him, or has He already? When is the last time you heard God speak to you?

Martha in the bible had the same problem with being too busy to hang out with God. In fact, she had Jesus over to her house to hang out and nearly ignored Him.

“Now it happened as they went that He entered a certain village; and a certain woman named Martha welcomed Him into her house. And she had a sister called Mary, who also sat at Jesus' feet and heard His word. But Martha was distracted with much serving, and she approached Him and said, "Lord, do You not care that my sister has left me to serve alone? Therefore tell her to help me."

And Jesus answered and said to her, "Martha, Martha, you are worried and troubled about many things. But one thing is needed, and Mary has chosen that good part, which will not be taken away from her." Luke 10:38-42

Martha was busy worrying about temporary things ignoring what her priorities should be. She, like Mary, could be hanging out with Jesus the very Son of God, who would buy her eternal life with His own death. We too, like Mary and Martha, could spend any amount of time we would like, hanging out with the Trinity. Not just on one occasion like with Martha, when they are at our house, but anytime and any day. Likewise, it is foolish beyond measure to have the writings of so many wise men compiled into a book called the Bible and to ignore them. Yet, many go about their daily tasks and relationships and never give a second thought to how basic the important priorities in life are. The world will steal away all types of time and energy from us if we let it. When instead, everyday we could make it a priority to spend just a little time with the One who created us, which is worth more than any other way we could spend our time.

The Challenge
What do we spend the hours of our days focused on and do we spend them in the best possible way? Tomorrow you will have at least 12 hours that you will be awake; could any of those be spent hanging out with God? Spending time with God according to the bible should be the single most important priority in each of our lives. Next should be the time we spend with our family. Mary recognized that nothing was more important than spending time with Jesus and Martha spent her time worried about things that were only temporary. There are hundreds of things each morning and each day that could occupy our time and priorities, God asks for only a portion of it when as our creator, He could demand it all.
 
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