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We’re joining Five Minute Friday and Fellowship Friday 13 today.
The prompt is CROWD.
GO
The minutes tick by methodically.
Soon they become hours.
The days pass in a blur.
One by one in line.
Marching along like soldiers
In neat lines. Tick-tock, tick-tock. . .
The way I use my time shoves the soldiers out of the way
Like a big rock in their way.
Displacing them a bit,
But they just keep marching on.
Each day has something to do.
The things that must be done. . .
Laundry, meals, dishes, cleaning. . .
All the mundane duties that hardly merit adding to the to-do list.
Then there are the things I must do. . .
Shopping for food, household needs, clothing, projects for the house,
Attending worship, involvement in ministry, preparation for leadership opportunities. . .STOP
And the things I want to do. . .
Dates with my husband, activities with friends, activities with children and grandchildren. . .
When I put all those things into my marching lines of soldiers, they start to get crowded out.
It becomes more and more difficult for them to march and progress.
It becomes more and more difficult to march unobstructed.
The demands on my time and energy begin to sap me.
They crowd out my time sentrys.
I have to choose between the things that are good and the things and people who are better.
Because I don’t want to crowd out the best things by doing mostly the mediocre and unimportant.
By doing the unimportant and missing out on the important and eternal.
Yes to the references to Mary and Martha. I definitely need to make sure the mundans doesnt crowd out the eternal. More sitting at His feet, more family, more love and a little less of the time sucking to-do’s.
maybe it is more of having mary’s heart in the middle of all the crazyness of the everyday. those things still have to get done. must be more an attitude difference than anything. we’re not stressed like martha was, worried about entertaining just right, wanting everything to be just so.
it’s more one of priorities. Jesus is first, along w His kingdom of course, but part of kingdom work is a lot of the mundane i’ve found.
This reminds me of Mary and Martha.
I am rereading a fabulous book called ‘Having a Mary Heart in a Martha World’ by Joanna Weaver.
It gives great insight into this short piece of scripture that encompasses a very rich message.
It does remind us of Mary and Martha. i have that book in my pile of book that i want to read. after this move i might actually get it read:)
I absolutely loved this! Last night, I fell into bed thinking of all the things I did that day and wondering at what of them are eternally significant?! What am I doing that is productive, significant, and useful – what pours into me and my family and grows our faith and moves us forward – and what just takes my time and attention because it crossed my path first? Thanks for these words today; I will chew on them quite a bit!
and remember becca. you are in the life stage that doesn’t FEEL very significant. feeding and changing and dressing babies can be very mundane…but it isn’t! it is building your relationship with each of those babies…as you joyfully (no not always!) relate to them over and over each day!
even tho’ it doesn’t FEEL significant, it is…eternally so. the things you do together as a family build to make memories. the goofy things that make your family unique. they are important. i don’t mean, in my 5 minutes, to minimize their importance at all!
but as the children get older, you find you have more time to CHOOSE what you will do. that is the time i’m talking about. the intentional things we do. they take tho’t. if we don’t think about them ahead of time, time just moves on without us and they don’t get done.
making time to do missional things in your community as a family, worshipping together on sundays as a priority, and of course, teaching them all the things parents need to teach their children about life and GOD. it’s a huge job. One that only GOD’s grace can enable us to do!