It’s Pretty Simple Really…It’s All About What Your Focus Is On
If you have siblings or children, you know how things typically progress with each new child. With the first there is a level of inexperience that leads to caution and overzealous instruction. With each following, things seem to relax.
A woman with five siblings (three sisters and two brothers) told a story about one night talking with her mother. They were talking about how the mother had changed from the first kid to the last. Her mother agreed that she had mellowed a lot. “When your oldest sister coughed or sneezed, I called the ambulance. When your youngest brother swallowed a dime, I just told him it was coming out of his allowance.”
Experience is a good teacher.
Most of us are familiar with the story of Mary and Martha. Luke 10:38-42 In this story Martha welcomes Jesus and His disciples into her home. Doing this kicks her servant’s heart into full swing. Hosting people is a lot of work.
While Martha was working to get things ready…Mary went in and sat down with Jesus and the disciples and was listening to Jesus. This upset Martha.
We all know people who excel at hosting. Some of this comes naturally, some is from experience.
A few weeks ago, we had my wife’s family in for the weekend. Debby fixed enough food for three meals a day for twenty-five. (There were only six of us) It’s not that any of us needed that much to eat…it was about her showing her love for them. It’s what her grandma would have done.
Serving others is a good thing…if we don’t lose sight of why we’re doing it.
Mary and Martha were different. All of us are different. These differences lead us to do different things. What’s important to one person isn’t to another.
We don’t know exactly why Martha or Mary were doing what they were in that moment. What we do know, is that in a few days after Jesus was with them, He would be dead.
This is why it is critical that we do what we do with our focus in the right place.
Serving others for the wrong reasons is no better than not serving them.
We need to be careful to focus on the right thing at the right time. Three things we know about focus –
- Our time is limited, the demands are endless – We can choose where we spend our time. Don’t let demands have control.
- Focusing on the right thing is living with no regret – We don’t know the future so focus on the most important thing now.
- You will never have enough time for everything, focus on the right thing – There will always be too much to do and we can’t do it all. We can choose what to neglect.
Make sure to focus on Jesus and what He wants. If we do this…we will be serving in the right way.
