While Jesus and his disciples were traveling, Jesus entered a village where a woman named Martha welcomed him as a guest. She had a sister named Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet and listened to his message. By contrast, Martha was preoccupied with getting everything ready for their meal. So Martha came to him and said, “Lord, don’t you care that my sister has left me to prepare the table all by myself? Tell her to help me.”

The Lord answered, “Martha, Martha, you are worried and distracted by many things. One thing is necessary. Mary has chosen the better part. It won’t be taken away from her.” (Luke 10:38-42)

Once in a while I hit the morning running, cut the dog’s walk short, rush my coffee, and arrive at my desk looking for a way to create an extra 30-minutes or so.

“No time for devotions,” I think. “I have important work to do.” “No time to pray,” I reason, “I can do that any old time.” “No need to hit the leather chair and meditate, I need to get on with my writing.”

Later, around 11:30 or so, when I’m falling far short in terms of lucidity, wisdom, output, and imagination, I remember that time spent in the presence of God is never time I could have used to greater effect giving in to the temptation to appear engaged and productive according to the standards of this world.

DECEPTION: Here’s what I think. I believe our culture has substituted the practice of busyness for the virtue of work, assigned artificial value to distraction, and all but abandoned the disciplines of reflection, rumination, meditation, contemplation, solitude, and prayer.

The message seems to be, “If you’re not overcommitted, then you’re not meaningfully engaged.” Visible activity takes precedence over investments of substance that work below the surface.

We end up driving our children to 14 activities in a week, sacrificing family in favor of one more game or practice, consigning the idea of dinner together to the realm of the impossible, abandoning family devotions, pushing community worship to the bottom of the pile, and failing to invest in each other because – quite frankly – “we’re far too busy for that.”

THE HERD! And we have become willing participants, because we have been persuaded, deluded, peer-pressured, bamboozled, brainwashed, and otherwise coerced into accepting this state of affairs as either correct or impossible to resist.

But I’m here to remind all of us that we are called to live in response to deeper truths than those adopted by the herd. We are beings created in the image of God, and we are designed to function best when we are attuned to the spiritual cadence at the core of our being, our identity as Children of the Living God.

Jesus – “You are worried and distracted by many things. One thing is necessary.” (Luke 10:42)

Don’t be so distracted. Don’t miss what really counts. Don’t be deceived.

Follow the Shepherd, and not the herd – DEREK