This is going to be a short post, but right now I am very busy with limited time, so you will have to excuse me. I realize that it has been quite some time since I last wrote an article to be posted, but there is a good reason so please allow me to explain. You see, I am working 2 jobs and have actually worked 39 hours of overtime this week. I have 2 kids whom I try to spend as much time as possible with; moreover, I am working with the youth group at church.
I am also taking a class at the College of Central Florida. Even better, this is a summer semester so it is all shoved down your throat in a lets get this done manner, but I didn’t want to wait until the fall semester so here we go. So you see, the reason I haven’t written anything recently is that I have been very, very, busy and don’t have much spare time….and therein lies the problem.
How many times do we stop and realize that we have gotten so caught up with our daily lives that we have neglected what really matters. We have that big project at work/school that needs to get done right away or we have to get the kids to piano, soccer, softball practice. We are a society of people who are on the move with places to go and people to see. Has anyone else ever been doing really, really well with studying the word, only to realize one day that you can’t remember when you last picked up your Bible (as in a time that wasn’t at a worship service)? Have you ever realized you haven’t prayed in a few days? If we were all truthful, I think we could all say that this has happened to us on occasion.
The problem is that we sometimes get so distracted by the things of this world and get so caught up in it, that we think that this is the stuff that really matters. Sometimes we focus all of our attention on our daily lives, problems, issues, life, and try to shove or fit God in where we can find the time. What scares me is the parable of the soil (Mark 4:1-20, Matthew 13:1-23, and Luke 8:1-15) when it mentions the seed that is choked out by everything going on around you. As Francis Chan put it, “Don’t assume you are the good soil.” That hits home. Go back and reread this parable and you can see what made me want to write this post. I know we all want to be the good soil and even think of ourselves in that manner, but when we actually look at the verse describing the seed that was strangled out, does it look familiar?
What we need to do is remember why we are here and that is to love God and love our neighbor. If we do these things, we will take the focus off of ourselves and some of the things we thought were so important will suddenly seem trivial. When your excuse is that you just don’t have the time, remember this, you will always find or make time for your true priorities.