one or many

One of the greatest temptations of the spiritual life is to pay attention to the many things, rather than the one thing. (Luke 10:38-42) That is because the many things are often good things, in and of themselves, they are just not the best thing.  And we are so easily distracted, it seems, by the urgent, at the expense of the important.

That is why we must make time and space each day to sit at the feet of Jesus and listen to what he has to say.  That is why we must start by stopping; in order to remind ourselves of what is important and what is merely urgent, what is essential and what is tangential, what is focal and what is peripheral.  It is the only way we will really have a chance of living the life God most deeply wants to live in and through us.

Lord Jesus, why do I allow myself to get so worried and distracted by the many things, when only one thing really matters—you.  Help me to choose the one thing today—to sit at your feet and listen to what you have to say.  Amen.