Stop it!

Photo Credit: Mihailo Radicevic

Now as they went on their way, Jesus entered a village. And a woman named Martha welcomed him into her house. And she had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord's feet and listened to his teaching. But Martha was distracted with much serving. And she went up to him and said, “Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to serve alone? Tell her then to help me.” But the Lord answered her, “Martha, Martha, you are anxious and troubled about many things, but one thing is necessary. Mary has chosen the good portion, which will not be taken away from her. Luke 10:38-42 (ESV)

Life is often measured in productivity and efficiency. The productivity model transcends into all areas of life. On a sports team, one of the most valued abilities in a player is their availability. While one might be the most talented player on the team, the team cannot benefit much if they only play two out of eight or ten games. Similarly, in businesses world we apply this principle. The “no-shows,” the chronically late and chronically sick can be detrimental to company performance and morale. While we recognize this in the “business world,” do we apply the same principles in our family and spiritual life? Unfortunately all too often we shoot ourselves in the foot! We need to STOP it. Christ is much more important than our business, Christ should be the center of our lives. For the next few moments, let us investigate three areas where we limit our effectiveness and what we can do about it.

Problem 1: We limit our effectiveness because we are overdoing it.

How many times in our lives do we over extend ourselves. There are times around the house where I help pick up and sometimes clean. I am not very good because I am a scatterbrained cleaner. I will pick up a few items in one room, put them in their proper place in another room, then start to pick up objects in the new room. I can keep on doing the “easy” items for a while and when someone comes to look and see the progress, there is not much of one because I have only done a little in a large amount of rooms.
We overestimate how much we can get done. Oh I can get one more thing done…and another one…finding ourselves late. We often have an excuse: our best friend asked us to do it, the pastor asked us to do it, it is for a good cause. So it is ok, right? Our culture tells us we can do everything and we need to do everything, yet this is not how God designed life. When God created Adam he said it was not good for him to be alone so he created a helpmate for him. He created males and females to complement each other. We on our own are not enough. God wants us to lean on one another, and more importantly to cling to him! We cannot be “Hans Brinker” trying to plug all of the leaks in the dike of the world. We have a limited number of fingers and a seemingly unlimited number of holes. There always will be more to do. There are times where we do not get everything done. Do not fall in to a trap of doubling our efforts thinking it was a failure on our end. If I had better time management, I could have accomplished all the tasks. There may be times where this is true, however try to have a realistic outlook on what can be done.

What can I do about it? 

To be effective as Christians, we need to love Christ, and others while acting wisely. It is better to do a few tasks well opposed to being on everything and being so exhausted we can only give a maximum of a 50-75% effort. I am not talking about simply being under the weather rather we do not have our hearts invested in it. We may have a few areas we are especially passionate in, invest in those areas and hit them full throttle. Do not pick everything. If you have a number of interests switch off….say I can only commit to once a week or once a month.  For those you cannot, let 

others step in, recommend others for the opportunity (with their permission) and let God handle it.

Problem 2:  We limit our effectiveness because of a false sense of time.

I have heard at times of retirees being busier than while they were working as they agree to all of those opportunities they once denied. I have also heard of retirees holding off on traveling because they felt they had all the time in the world to do it. Some of these couples later regret their decisions as they find health problems progress quicker than they hoped thus having to give up.
Jesus gives some words to those who wanted to follow, and his instruction was to go now. Not to wait. Luke 9:59-60 says, “To another he said, “Follow me.” But he said, “Lord, let me first go and bury my father.” And Jesus said to him, “Leave the dead to bury their own dead. But as for you, go and proclaim the kingdom of God” (ESV). When you look further into this text, it seems to be more he is waiting for his parents to pass, wanting to fulfill his obligation to take care of his family.
There are countless opportunities and tasks we think we can get done later and certainly there are some we can put off. Perhaps cleaning the basement does not need to be done this moment, however feeding our children cannot really wait. What about in our christian lives? Volunteering at the mission can wait, our prayer and scripture life cannot. It is our lifeblood.

We tell ourselves lies regarding time. When I have “more time”….I will get my prayer life on track….I will start my new devotional…I will read scripture with my kids. It does not work this way. The only way we have time is if we make time. If we are not growing, we potentially are dying on the vine. We are missing a deeper intimacy with God. We at times say these phrases knowing we want them and we value them, albeit not enough. Perhaps we remember times where our devotions were more regular and we enjoyed a fruitful relationship. We need to return to it. We can also be confident God will reward the time we spend with him in our lives. We will not always have time “later” because at some point, the time the Lord ordained for us will be over and we will not be able to buy more time on this earth.

What can I do about it?

For some, this may be one of our harder fixes. Why? We may not think anything is wrong. We need to re-evaluate our priorities. I heard it said from a number of places we need to live with a God first, others second, me third mentality. Some may look at this and say, those are my priorities? If we charted how much time we spent in the average week on those activities, how would it come out? We may not like the answer. If we need an adjustment...Set a time with God by yourself. Give God the "first fruits" by getting up early....have breakfast with God. Give the first few minutes of your lunch break with God and have a mid-day check in. Talk with him in the car while traveling. We can do it.
We need to prioritize our relationship with God and let the first relationship overflow into the others. Some of these do not need to be mutually exclusive. Spend time in prayer with your spouse, with your kids. Charles Spurgeon says, “To pray is to enter the treasure-house of God and to gather riches out of an inexhaustible storehouse.” We often want more, more time, more resources…if we go to God perhaps we will be joyful and content with less when we find our satisfaction in him. He may also open up his storehouses to us if it is in his will.

Problem 3: We limit our effectiveness because we are not fully invested in the moment.

There are a plethora of distractions available in our world. In a large sense, the traditional 9-5 jobs are becoming extinct. Some might say, no they are not. Why would I make such a claim? I would argue technology and profits have changed our job landscape. With cellphones we can be contacted at any time. It does not matter on day or night. Smart phones connect us with our e-mail while we are away from work. We may be moving from New York City as the "city which never sleeps" to a country which never sleeps.
We may always think there is always a task to be accomplished and we miss the present. Looking back to the scripture above, we see Mary investing in her relationship with Jesus and Martha is upset over Mary leaving her with all of the work. Martha has a point. She has worried and begun distracted from the moment and the importance of what was happening before her. How many times do we act in a similar fashion? At times we are too self-centered and not others-centered. My boys are playing and I am on the computer, phone or the television? I could be reading with a book or wrestling with them.  I am “present” yet not really interacting.

What can I do about it?

What about you? What is your major distraction? Name it. Call it out. If you cannot identify one, ask your spouse or a trusted friend. After identifying them, we need to learn to manage the distractions in our lives, if not eradicate them completely. My biggest distraction is technology. I need to put my cell phone and computer away.  If we cannot eliminate the distraction completely, we MUST set limits. Farmers place animals in fences to keep the animals in, as well as to keep others out, right? Fences can serve two purposes. We may want to think of our limits as fences. The benefit of a fence is it keeps those animals in order, yet it comes with a cost....it is harder to get in. This is not a cost in terms of distraction, rather a benefit.  What does a "distraction fence" look like? For me, it could be placing my phone in a central location of the house in a high place where I can hear it for emergencies and commit to only checking e-mail/voicemail a certain time for a specified time. We also can turn our distraction to God. We can pray about it and leave it in God’s hands.

Follow Up

What do you think? What is limiting your effectiveness as a Christian? Are you trying to do too much? Do you have your priorities mixed up? What is distracting you?

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