This One Thing

"This one thing I do..." Phil 3:13

Some used to think walking while chewing gum was multi-tasking, not anymore.  Today people are multitasking and mega-managing often complex and conflicting schedules.  Some folks are more overloaded than an electrical outlet behind the Christmas tree.  .  People are juggling more sharp objects than an acrobat at Cirque Solá.  People are driving and opening their e-mail on the interstate.  Keeping track of all their children’s appointments requires parents have the skills of an air traffic controller.  Cell phones ringing in movie theaters and movie theaters are playing on cell phones.  Today we have more high tech gadgets than George Jetson dreamed about, but the attention span of a gadfly. 

It is hard for me to imagine the Apostle Paul with a Blackberry.  No one was busier than he.  The Bible says that he was ministering to the saints “night and day.”  He was a rolling stone gathering no moss, but “multi-tasking?”  I don’t think so.  He said “This one thing I do…”  Paul was a focused man.  He was a man on a mission.  Everything Paul did, everything, had one and only one end in view.  He was Christ’s Apostle to the Gentiles. 

There was a time when putting a penny in the fuse box could keep the lights going for a little while.  The problem with that was, it was a good way to burn the house down.  Those who brag about being able to do ten things at the same time need to wake up and realize that that is stretching the truth like chewing gum.  No one can do ten things at once as well as one thing at a time.  Just remember the last time you were engaged in a conversation with someone whose eyes were scanning the horizon for the next thing.  

Amos said “How can two walk together except they be agreed?”  They can’t.  If we are to walk with God, we must bring Him into every one of our multi-tasks.  And I have a feeling that if bringing God is not an option, we might just jettison some of the junk we have filled our lives with.   Perhaps then we would enjoy Him more, have less junk, and have more joy.          -id