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⁴¹“Martha, Martha,” the Lord answered, “you are worried and upset about many things, ⁴²but only one thing is needed.^[f] Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her.”

Luke 10:41,42

Focusing on What’s Important

Throughout the Bible we find plenty of scripture telling us what we need to focus on. It’s very clear that if we focus on the right things we’ll have everything we need (Matthew 6:33), we’ll bear fruit John 15:7, we’ll have success (Joshua 1:8), and God will redeem our time (Eph. 5:15-17), I could go on and on. So how do we figure out what to focus on? It’s simple:

The Answer to 1,001 Questions - Keith Moore always says that the answer to 1,001 questions is simply: “Be Led”. We need to be led by God in everything we do. The truth is that if we’re being led by anything or anyone other than God – we’ll be wasting time.

Realize Everything You Do, Everywhere You Go, Everything You Say can Be on Purpose: I Cor. 9:26 says, “I run every step with purpose”. God wants to direct your steps in every area of your life. Make sure you spend time each day asking Him to show you what He wants to you to do that day.

If You Don’t Choose How You’ll Spend Your Time Others Will: Carl Sandburg said it best, “Time is the coin of your life.  It is the only coin you have, and only you can determine how it will be spent.  Be careful lest you let other people spend it for you.”

If We Focus on The Kingdom, We’ll Have all the Time we Need: Matthew 6:33 says, “Seek ye FIRST the Kingdom of God . . . and ALL these things will be added to you.” ONCE OUR TIME BECOMES IMPORTANT TO HIM, HE’LL FREE UP OUR TIME TO DO MORE IMPORTANT THINGS FOR THE KINGDOM as well as things we enjoy.

The Only Way to be Successful in All You Do - Joshua 1:8 says that we need to meditate on the Word of God day and night and ONLY THEN will we be successful in all we do. Notice it didn’t say meditating on all of the subjects of the world, peoples blog posts, peoples books, etc., but on the Word of God!

The bottom line is that if your focus all of your energy (all your heart, soul, and mind) on God then you’ll always be focusing on what’s important, you’ll accomplish more than you could imagine, you’ll be doing what God called you to do, you’ll always be at the right place at the right time, you’ll avoid a ton of trouble and pain in your life, and I can guarantee you that you’ll be changing other peoples lives.

Are you focusing on the right things?

⁴¹“Martha, Martha,” the Lord answered, “you are worried and upset about many things, ⁴²but only one thing is needed.^[f] Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her.”

Luke 10:41,42

Yesterday we discovered the best answer to the question, “What’s important”. The answer is “Less and Less” . Today I want to focus on how much time we waste on things that aren’t necessarily the best use of our time. The best of us waste hours upon hours and wonder why we don’t accomplish everything we’re supposed to or why we don’t have the peace God promised us.

The truth is everyone has 24 hours to work with – so why do some people succeed and others don’t? I truly believe it’s because successful people have learned to prioritize their life in a way that they’re able to focus on things that important and cut things that are a waste of time. I’m in the middle of learning to do this in my own life and as I evaluate my life I’ve recognized a ton of areas that I wasn’t using my time wisely. Here are some (maybe you can relate):

Lies that I’ve Bought Into When it Comes to How I Spend My Time

• I Have to Learn as Much as I can About as Many Topics as I can to Become Well Balanced- This is a hard one for me to live out – I love learning. However, I think a lot of the time we learn things just to say we learned them… I’m coming to the conclusion that if it doesn’t help somebody – it’s not worth the time to learn it.
  

• I Have to Spend an Equal Amount of Time with Everyone – As a people pleaser… this is very hard for me. However, the people that get upset about you not spending a “fair” amount of time with them are immature and most likely – have no life and they want to waste your time!
  

• I Have to Make Everybody Happy so I need to do Everything I’m Asked To – Anyone else have trouble saying no? I do, but I’ve learned this… if I don’t say no – Other people will decide how I spend my time. This may not be a big deal in the beginning, but throw a wife and kids in the picture… suddenly, it’s a big deal!
  

• I Have to Hang Out with Someone/Some People Every Night I’m Free – This is so hard for me because I love spending time with people. However, I need to have “Bubba time” to myself at least once a week. I’ve learned that if I don’t schedule this and do it on purpose – it won’t happen.
  

• Everybody That want to Talk to Me I have to Spend an Hour With – Nope! Craig Groeschel had a great post a while back that helped me with this. He said to give meetings a time limit . . . that helps!
  

• Everybody That wants Me to Help Them Actually Wants Helped – This is a hard part of ministry! A lot of people just want someone to listen to them rather than actually getting help with their problem. If people aren’t willing to do things you ask them to do to help them with their problem… you’ll ultimately be wasting your time.
  

• If I’m busy doing something – I’m accomplishing something - Busyness does not equal progress. If I’m not busy doing things that are important, if I’m just being busy for busy sake… I’m wasting my time.
  

• If I’m not doing something - I’m wasting my life away – Ok – I struggle with this one. I struggle sitting in a chair for 2 minutes in silence! However… I’ve been focusing on really just sitting and meditating on the Word, praying, and getting quiet. It’s helped a lot!

These are just a few of the big ones I’ve been recognizing in my life… tomorrow I’ll talk about what we need to be focusing on!

So what about you? What are some ways you’ve wasted your time? Some lies that you’ve bought into?

If you’re anything like me you have an incredibly hard time telling people no or telling them something they do not want to hear. Because of this I often find myself “overbooking” my schedule to please people. In elementary school, middle school, high school, and even for some off college it seemed as if I had an infinite amount of time to spend with people, so I would hang out with as many people as I could as often as I could. As I continue in life’s journey I am finding that the more you continue to grow in life the more important your time is and how you spend your time. You end up having to choose very intentionally who to spend time with and what you spend your time doing. Craig Groeschel had a great post on this.

i.e. Right now I am running a marathon, working 30 hours a week at church, I’m a full time college student, and go to Bible School. I have less time to spend with people now then I did when I was in high school and only had a 7 hour school day. When I get married, I’ll need to spend a ton of time with my wife so my time will be even more limited…etc.

I often have people challenge me that I only spend time with “big dogs” or “people that can add value to me” and that bothered me incredibly. I would scream inside, “I only have so much time in a week, month, year, etc… and everyone wants my time and if I don’t give it to them then I’m the bad guy… I CAN’T PLEASE EVERYBODY….AHHHHH.”

I’ve discovered that it’s a fact that:

• “You will go no further than the people you surround yourself with”
• “You show me your friends, and I’ll show you your future”
• “You attract who you are, not who you want”
  

I guess what I am finding is this:

Friendships in life develop and are constantly changing as you go through seasons of life. I am convinced that “best friends” should be able to not see each other for years, and yet they’ll get together and it will be like they’ve never left. Yet so many people make the assumption that it will always be like the “good old days” and they get upset when it’s not. Unfortunately these people end up missing out on the journey because they refuse to go on and accept change. Even when you do give them time, they end up wasting it by complaining about how it isn’t like the good old days (this drives me insane…Grow and Get a Life!)

I want to spend my time wisely with people who:

• Can constantly challenge me to dream, go after God, and change the world
• Are going somewhere in life and understand the value of time
• Are a blast to hang out with
• Don’t spend 90% of their conversations complaining
• Will treat me the same even if they haven’t seen me in years

If I spent time with everybody who wants my time… I’d burn out, would never have time alone, would never have devotions, and would never be effective in life. I love what Paul said:

“Obviously, I’m not trying to win the approval of people, but of God. If pleasing people were my goal, I would not be Christ’s servant.”
-Galatians 1:10

If I am not intentional with how I spend my time and who I spend it with… I will miss out on so much of what God has for me…I’m here to please an audience of One!

Realize I am not talking about spending time with people who are hurting and need counseling and things of that nature… I am talking about my personal life.

What are your thoughts on this subject?