“One thing. Just do this one thing,” I kept telling myself as I was playing golf recently.
Not 10 things, or five, or even three. Just one. I simply needed to keep my head down and my eyes on the little white ball at my feet. Why, oh why, was I having such a hard time doing it?
If you’ve never played golf, trust me, it isn’t nearly as easy as it looks. I’ve read instructional books, watched videos, taken a class and been at this game, albeit sporadically, for years. After all that and after hitting countless truly awful shots, I know the one thing I need to remember most is that if I lift up my head too soon to see where my ball is going, I won’t see anything good.
It shouldn’t be hard to remember and do one simple thing, right? Well, it is. And not just on the golf course, but in life. Even the Apostle Paul experienced that frustration, writing, “For I do not understand what I am doing; for I am not practicing what I want to do, but I do the very thing I hate” (Romans 7:15).
I hear you, brother Paul, I hear you.
While Jesus was visiting his friends, Mary and Martha, He addressed this very thing. Martha was apparently buzzing around the kitchen like a gnat, so Jesus said to His frazzled friend, “Martha, Martha, you are worried and bothered about so many things; but only one thing is necessary, for Mary has chosen the good part, which shall not be taken away from her” (Luke 10:41-42).
What was the one thing, the “good part” Mary had chosen? To simply sit still and listen to what Jesus was saying. To stop fretting about getting dinner on the table and instead enjoy the presence of the God of the universe, who happened to be sitting in her living room.
King David seemed to have a better grasp on this truth. He was busy guy, what with a kingdom to rule and a ridiculous and dubious number of wives and concubines to keep track of. But in spite of that and some big moral failures, God called him a man after His own heart because David passionately sought God.
In Psalm 27, David wrote, “One thing I have asked from the Lord, that shall I seek; that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the Lord and to meditate in His temple.”
Of all the things we get in a dither about doing, the one thing that seems to matter most to God is for us to earnestly seek Him—to make an honest effort with a humble heart to know Him. After all, to know Him is to love Him, and to love Him is to obey Him.
As long as we live on this spiritual battlefield we call earth, there will be forces within and without trying to keep us from that one most important thing. It takes determination to seek God and in my case, that determination is born of desperation—the sure knowledge that if I don’t regularly read God’s word and spend time in prayer, I won’t be the person I need to be.
As my husband can verify, it’s vital for me to interact with God every morning before I’m unleashed upon other humans.
The good news is that I don’t have to climb a mountain, cross a desert, or even leave my house to find Him. He’s always just a prayer away, waiting and wanting for me to be still and turn my thoughts to Him.
“You will seek Me and find Me, when you seek Me with all your heart.”—Jeremiah 29:13