I love to have everything clean and in its proper place. If things get too messy or too disorganized, I get unsettled and even frustrated. But life is messy, very messy. Relationships are messy. Work is messy. Most of all, trying to juggle all of life’s demands is just plain messy.
I don’t want to just juggle my life for the rest of my life. I want to live my life. I don’t want to spend my time trying to balance my priorities; I want to spend my time living out my priorities. So, when can I, when can we, stop juggling and start living?
When we remember to pray.
Remembering to pray may sound overly simplistic, trite even. But it isn’t. There are so many demands on our lives that we sometimes think that if we stop juggling—even for five minutes, our lives will fall apart. Nothing could be further from the truth. Praying teaches us that life is not about juggling. It isn’t about balancing. It is about seeking. It is about seeking first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness. Let me show you what I mean.
Picture yourself sitting down in the middle of all the messy demands on our lives. I will sit there with you. Can you feel it, the stress of work, school, kids, dinners, dishes, laundry, and more laundry? Can you feel the weight of it, the frustration of it? How long will we have to live like this? When will we be able to stop juggling the demands of life and start truly living life—a life that really matters? You’ll love this answer; it is a good one…the answer is ‘right now.’ We can start living right now.
When we remember to pray.
Remembering to pray does something mysteriously wonderful to all of the demands on our lives. Praying takes all those heavy demands we have been struggling to juggle and transforms them into life. Yes, the very demands we are working so hard to juggle and balance are the very things of life. They are the very things we are longing for.
This transformation can only take place by first seeking God’s Kingdom within us. It is only by the power of the indwelling of the Holy Spirit that the demands on our lives become the joys of our lives.
This transformation from ‘demands on life’ to ‘joys of life’ makes all the difference in the world. Rather than having demands that take time away from truly living, we are granted joyous tasks that are woven together to create our lives, lives that matter.
After seeking first His Kingdom, the demands at work are transformed into time spent in His Mission Field. After seeking first His Kingdom, the demands at school are transformed into time spent learning more about Him. After seeking first His Kingdom, the demands at home and with our children become time spent on showering our family with the love of God. When we seek first His Kingdom, the demands on our time aren’t taken away from our lives. They are transformed into our lives. But this transformation can only happen...
When we remember to pray. So let’s pray.
“Dearest Lord Jesus, I humbly come before you to pray for our dear readers. You know who they are. Only you can take the heaviest demands on their lives and transform them into the very things that make their lives worth living. Help them to remember to seek first the Kingdom of God so that their lives will be forever transformed by you, in you and for you! In the name of Jesus we pray. Amen.”