Luke 10:41-42
And Jesus answered and said unto her, Martha, Martha, thou art careful and troubled about many things:But one thing is needful: and Mary hath chosen that good part, which shall not be taken away from her.
At any given time there are a myriad of things that bay for our attention. It may be deadline, schedules, bills to be paid, balancing between family and work or even as we start a new year, a long list of things to do otherwise known as resolutions. Against these background of exigencies, focusing and prioritizing can be a challenge and in the process we can lose our peace and sometimes our sense and sensibility as we juggle competing demands.
In the account above, Martha was in a flurry of activity trying to put together a gourmet meal for a guest she loved, honored and clearly wanted to impress. Mary on the other hand sat serenely at the feet of Jesus seemingly oblivious and unperturbed by the chaos that was going on around her. She focused only on Jesus and what he was saying. This must have prickled Martha to no end because at last she came to huffing and puffing (possible with a few strands of her hair in hand) before Jesus accusing her sister of being insensitive and demanding that Jesus should order Mary to join her in her labors. Jesus points out to Martha that the issue was not her sister, Mary, but was her concern with many things that had left her with frayed nerves and clearly stressed out. Jesus tells Martha, that at that particular moment, only one thing was important and needed attention and that was him. This was something Mary had grasped and hence her poise and composure amidst the chaos. After all Jesus had fed thousands from a small boys lunch of two fish and five loaves of bread, surely he could snap up a supernatural gourmet meal if he wanted?!
There is a needful thing at any given moment no matter the number of things that demand our attention and we need to be able to identify it, prioritize it and focus on it. Dr. Joseph Duran in the late 1940’s must have had an inkling of the needful thing when he came up with the ‘Pareto principle’ otherwise phrased as ‘the vital few and the trivial many’. Dr. Juran fronted that in any given set of things only 20% of the set contributed to 80% of the desired result. What this means for us is that, in whatever setting we may be whether at home, at work , in business or even in our spiritual life, we need to identify the vital 20% that we should focus on to get the 80% result that we desire. When we identify the vital or needful and are focused on it , then like Mary we will be unperturbed by the many but trivial concerns that would stress us out and cause us to be inefficient in the use of our time and resources.
By focusing on the vital few, we will reap the greatest profit or productivity for the use of our time, effort and I believe even monetary investment and will be in a better frame of mind to manage the trivial many. So I challenge you, at the beginning of this year, go through the list of resolutions you have made, identify the top three resolutions which in your view will result in the greatest progress growth, profit, health or improvement in your life. Write down the results or returns you expect to get from this top three, note down the action points for each of the three priorities and especially what you will begin to do today, this week and this month. Set a specific time frame for when you will review your progress and lastly get a good friend or family member to keep you accountable on your top three items for 2014.
Don’t wait until tomorrow…identify the needful thing for today, better yet for the next one hour of your life……..and get started.
An Instructed Tongue 