“May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.” (Romans 15:13)

Friday, September 3, 2010

Horse and Buggy

There I was speeding along a back road trying to get where I was going when WHAM out of nowhere I have to slam on my brakes for an Amish family trotting along on my road with their horse and buggy going just as slow as you can imagine. As soon as it's safe, I speed past, a little annoyed I might add, just to have to do the same thing at least 10 more times along this road.  Each time about a minute or two apart and each time I think that I MUST have passed the last one. Good gosh how many Amish people could live in this area? And are ALL of them out right now?!? 

I was learning about Mary and Martha this week also and the two seemed so tied together.  Here Martha is preparing a meal for Jesus and His disciples, whom She invited over I might add, and her sister Mary, of all people, is just sitting there doing nothing but listening to the conversation. Not helping at all. And Martha gets fed up, and says (paraphrased) "Jesus, can't you make Mary come help me?" and Jesus in his infinite wisdom says (also paraphrased) "Martha, Mary has figured out how to slow down and enjoy this life I've given her and she's enjoying time with the Word of God (aka me, Jesus) and I'm not going to make her start hurrying up and just do do doing all the time." ~at least... that's how I read it ;) Check out Luke 10:28-42 for reference.

So hmmm, maybe the Amish people had it right in some ways.  Maybe they were not annoyed as I was trying to just get where I was going. Maybe they were just enjoying where they were while they were there.  And who says it was my road anyway?  I wanted them to get out of my way, but all my rushing about probably threw up some dust and rocks at them.  How selfish of me. 

How often do the busy things of life become the "important things" just because they're the most urgent, not because they are truly the most important?  And how often do we ignore the truly important things just because they're not screaming at us with urgency?

Reflection Question: What is important in your life that has been pushed aside by the urgent things in your life? What are you going to do to change that?

1 comment:

  1. What an amazing (yet common-daily life-type) observance/blog...what is urgent in my life?? getting to work on time? watching my favorite show?? hardly....this was a real thought provoking blog and question...I may "come back", later and add to my comment :-)

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