Not Too Busy

“Martha was busy for Jesus, and that left her too busy to be with Jesus.” by ~ Jon Walker Growing with Purpose: Connecting with God Every Day

Interesting point Jon makes. You read it and your head kind of twirls for a few minutes, “she was busy for Jesus but that left her too busy to be with Jesus.” That doesn’t make sense! Once we let our twirling brain waves settle down we can see what he says is true.

In fact it’s so common we do it not only to Jesus but to our families, friends, as well as ourselves. We busy ourselves with activities in the name of “doing it for our family, for Jesus, for others,” then we find ourselves too busy to be WITH them.

Martha may have had her heart in the right place but her focus was all wrong. She skipped what was most important in trade for what she thought was the most significant thing to do. In the process of it all she couldn’t understand why Mary didn’t have the same priority list.

What Martha was doing wasn’t wrong until she made it that way by overlooking something of greater value, time with Jesus instead of just time FOR Jesus. It didn’t stop there she took her mistake even further when she got after Mary for not following her suit.

It’s an awesome privilege to be able to serve the Lord but we need to remember there is something even greater that can not be bypassed and that is time WITH Jesus. Time spent in His word, sitting at the foot of the cross, praying, praising, and loving on the One who loves us.

Some where along the line Satan threw us a lie we swallowed hook line and sinker. The lie that keeping busy and bustling around for Jesus, our families, and friends shows them we care. We take it out like a laundry list and shake it out to hang on the clothesline for all to see everything we have done. We get off balance in what we need to be doing.

Instead of bypassing the cross on the way to the soup kitchen we need to stop first and give Christ the first fruits of our time and efforts by sitting down with Him on a day to day basis. We should never be too busy to stop in with Jesus. After that then by all means get to the soup kitchen and help out those in need.

A friend of mine who is a shut-in in many ways and doesn’t get out much finds it interesting when people tell her whenever they happen to be driving by her house they honked or “think of her.” They don’t stop in and visit, they figure a drive-by honking or thought is good enough. We often treat Jesus the same way. We drive by Him at the cross long enough to honk or maybe “think of Him” but we don’t take the time to stop and visit with Him. We think the busy efforts of serving Him at the local church says it all but it doesn’t.

Don’t be so busy serving Jesus that you bypass the very One you so love to serve. Spend time with Jesus and you will see your service to Him and for Him flourish! Our lives need to reflect that we are not too busy to spend time with Jesus and those we care about the most.


© 2009 Karen J. Gillett @ Pencil Marks and Recipes Publishing