| “Martha, Martha,” the Lord answered, “you are worried and upset about many things, but only one thing is needed. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her.” |
| —Luke 10:41-42 |
Trisha was one of those children: always attracted to the wrong things, but always busy. On one visit to her classroom, I observed her moving from pencil sharpener to sink, to closet, back to her desk to play with her crayons and erasers. She did all of this in just a few minutes. In the hallway one day, I watched her stop to stare at a piece of fuzz on the carpet! In my class, I required that she sit next to me in the front of the room, so that she could have a reasonable chance of paying attention.
Trisha usually kept quiet. Yet, her distractibility would keep everyone’s eyes on her. She seemed like such a happy child—but thoroughly happy for absolutely the wrong reasons. She allowed things to interfere with the place where her attention should focus. We can have this problem too.
Like me, have you sometimes sat down to meet with the Lord in the morning and before long found your mind on something else? Usually, when I get distracted at such times, I remember something I need to take care of in the kitchen, or an email I forgot to send. Or, worse yet, I worry about something that turns my mind away from the right things.
Jesus wants us to sit at His feet and listen to Him. As students ourselves, God justifiably wants us to give Him our complete and undivided attention. Where will our strength, wisdom, love, patience, and the true satisfaction of our needs come from if we neglect to focus on Him?
In Colossians 3:1-2, the Apostle Paul tells us that we have the responsibility:
“…to set our hearts on things above… to set our minds on things above, not on earthly things.”
If we have difficulty concentrating on His voice in the morning when we spend time alone with Him, how can we hope to hear God’s voice during the busy day ahead?
