Devotional: Finding Contentment in a Discontent World {Luke 10:41-42}

“Martha, Martha,” the Lord answered, “you are worried and upset about many things, but few things are needed—or indeed only one. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her.” {Luke 10:41-42}

The story of Martha and Mary, every time I read it my heart stings with conviction.

Are you a Martha or a Mary?! Read Luke 10:38-42 for full context.

I’m a Martha — productivity-aholic, who’s way of service is usually in the form of doing things. And let’s be honest, the holiday’s tend to intensify the Martha in me.

I’ll be honest, I don’t know how to get ahead, or keep up for that matter, without capitalizing on every minute available to me.

Nap-time is always work time {which bleeds into anxiety about when my son is going to wake up and how fast can I work}. And if my son, Brody is coloring I can ‘color’ aka update my to-do list, write a grocery list, and occasionally look up and say, ‘Good job buddy.’

Because the mental-load of running my house and my business can be all consuming; forcing the wires in my brain to jump from task to task with a constant goal of checking things off the list.

In fact, I recently heard on Jenna Kutcher’s Goal Digger podcast that ‘the average time spent on a task before losing focus is 1 minute and 15 seconds.’ WHAT?!

In an effort to find greater focus on my top priorities — God and Family {which typically take the backseat when life gets busy}; I decided to pump the brakes a bit in November by doing 3 things:

1. I waited 24 hours before responding to all commitments to really think about my schedule and priorities. Which lead to a lot more ‘no’s’ than normal.
2. On Friday’s, my day off with Brody, I blocked my calendar so I couldn’t schedule any work meetings and I forced us out of the house to do an activity where I could be 100% focused on him.
3.  I took the month off teaching group fitness {in reality, I ended up teaching 8 classes instead of the usual 12-15}.

I clearly have a long way to go and I wonder if I’ll ever be able to turn off my phone from the hours of 7pm-6am, or not put the dishes away before I sit down to do my morning devotional.

But the point is, I want to quit rushing around and be more focused on my top priorities — God and Family.

And if there’s anything I’ve learned from the month of November, it’s that gratitude can’t in-itself create more time, but it can help drown out the self-serving busywork.

Discontentment leads to constantly calculating what you are missing in life. So you see all the tasks that need to be done in order to reach contentment.

Whereas, thankful people can worship wholeheartedly. Gratitude opens our hearts to God’s peace and wipes away the busywork that can cloud our view of the blessings all around us.

Devotional Prayer: Finding Contentment in a Discontent World – Luke 10:41-42

Looking for more faith posts? You can find previous weeks’ devotions here.