November 21, 2021
There’s a fellow I know that is the hardest working man I have ever met. Unfortunately, he works hard at not working. Don’t get me wrong, he isn’t afraid of work. As a matter of fact, he rubs up against work all day long and I’m pretty sure he wouldn’t mind taking a nap right next to it. If this man would work as hard at working as he does to avoid work, I am confident he would be a millionaire by now. We all know people like this, and we crack jokes at their expense all the time, but as I was watching this man working so hard at avoiding work, I started pondering. If we aren’t careful, we can roll this avoiding work concept right over into our spiritual lives. When I take stock of my life and my schedule, I would have to say that I am a busy man. I work late and get home from work around 7:30 or so on both Monday and Thursday evenings. I visit our Wayne County minimum security prison on Wednesday and quite often I go from there straight to prayer meeting at church on Wednesday night. On Friday evenings, Marie and I try to have a “date night” of some sort, which usually involves simply having a meal out together somewhere. As a preacher, Sunday is a busy day with Sunday School, morning worship, and Sunday evening Bible class. That leaves Saturday as my only day “off”. Saturday involves, cutting grass, printing the church bulletin, grocery shopping, taking the trash to the dump, and any other errands I didn’t get around to during the week. Looking over my week, I am tired just typing it out for you. But here is the rub. As busy as I am, how much actual kingdom fruit do I harvest? Churches can be guilty of this as well. An awful lot of churches have something going on all the time. They are very busy, but how much kingdom fruit are they harvesting? In Luke 10:38-42, Luke records an encounter with Martha and Mary. It seems that Martha was very busy. In fact, with all the cleaning, cooking, and serving, she was trying to do, she went out to the backyard to ask her sister, Mary, (who was sitting at the feet of Jesus listening to Him teach), to help her. Jesus gently rebuked Martha about being busy about the wrong things. When I look at my schedule, I realize that I am a Martha. I don’t exactly know where to lessen my busy schedule, but I do know that I am going to ask the Lord to help me choose the best things so I can be busy about the right things. The best things. Kingdom things. Eternal things. Maybe you need to pray about the same thing.
Be blessed and be a blessing . . . Andy
