I recently came down with an upper respiratory infection, and it knocked the wind out of my sails for a little bit.  It was one of those moments when I hadn’t slowed down in a while so the Lord decided he was going to help me to realize the error of my ways.  Well, during that recovery time, I had some time to reconnect with a friend of mine, and we were talking a little bit about devotion time and how life gets busy sometimes.  Well, okay, let’s face it, life gets in the way a lot of times.  It gets in the way of things you want to do, places you want to go, people you want to see.  I realized that sometimes, you have to get in the way of life and make those things happen that you need to do for yourself.  She mentioned that she doesn’t have much time during the day to do her daily devotionals, and the only time that she really has to do them would be at night…BUT, that’s work time so really, that’s not the right time.  Early morning is when she is getting everyone ready for the day so that’s bad, too.  We’re just always so BUSY, BUSY, BUSY…I was reminded of my Walk to Emmaus a few months ago when some of the women in our group told us that being busy simply means that we are Bound Under Satan’s Yoke.  When we are too busy for the things that are important in our lives, we are giving our attentions and priorities to the wrong things.  That is precisely what Satan wants from us.  He wants us to be distracted by the things that distract us from our time with God and our family because that is what makes us most vulnerable to him.

This year, 2014, is my year to lead a more purposeful life.  Now, I don’t mean that I am going to sit down every day and meditate on every little move that I make, but I am going to be purposeful in what I do to ensure that everything I do is done because it is what God wants me to do.  Things won’t be perfect.  They won’t be happy and easy all of the time, but I am going to do them with prayerful consideration that I am doing them according to God’s will.  This applies to my spiritual life, my family life, friends, my business.  When we give our time to being BUSY, we let distractions come between us and those things that are truly important.  This year, my focus will be less on being busy and serving the things that turn my attention away from God’s will and more toward listening to His pull on my heart and purposefully acting in ways according to His desire for my life.

“But if serving the Lord seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your ancestors served beyond the Euphrates, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you are living. But as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord.”  Joshua 24:15