“May my meditation be pleasing to Him, as I rejoice in the Lord.”

Psalm 104:34

The apostle Paul wrote, “Whatever you do in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks through Him to God the Father.” Colossians 3:17 What a challenge for us! How else can we achieve this unless we are consistently and intently focused on fulfilling the standard God has set for us? We are unable to do so perfectly, of course, but lets look a little deeper into this topic.

God has given us dominion over the earth to be busy and productive, not to be idle or self-absorbed. “Busy is a blessing”, as you may have heard before. Responsibilities such as keeping the home and being a wife and a mother can be incredibly rewarding, despite being a full time commitment. Yet, in a world of deadlines and obstacles, our roles can easily become burdensome and demanding to the point where we want to isolate ourselves so that we can be idle for awhile. The big question is what do we value the most? Do we prioritize loving and serving people in our lives more than God? Is our focus on temporary things in this life or on eternal things in the next?

When our commitments make us so busy or overwhelmed that we neglect our relationship with Christ, it’s evident that we must make time to seek His wisdom and His will for us. He can bring the balance to our lives that we desperately strive for.

When we fervently seek God and focus on Him, we can surrender what don’t have control over and honor Him in what we do have control of with a heart of thankfulness. This is how we receive His peace and meet the challenge given to us in Col. 3:17.

This is a daily battle of the mind. As sinners, we are constantly faced with decisions to either give into to our flesh or to do what is righteous. This is why consistently focusing on Christ is so paramount. It not only improves our very existence, but it blesses our families, is a witness to unbelievers and its honoring to Him who has granted us this short time on earth. This means we must be careful with the kind of media we consume, relationships we have, environments we put ourselves in and even the music and podcasts we listen to. We tend to reflect what we observe the most, so lets observe who our perfect and Holy Lord is as much as we can.