Spiritual Prioritization - Learning from Mary

He was in his early 70’s and his body was almost done. He had congestive heart failure and a crippling neurological disease. He was feeling a bit down.

A mixture of frustration and phlegm tainted his words.

“You spend all of your life learning how to do something, and being able to afford to do something, and then you can’t do it anymore”.

He was a skilled trumpeter and an avid outdoor’s man. Yet he could no longer control his fingers to play any music. And he could barely walk let alone hike the outdoors.

Life is made up of windows of time. A window of a couple decades is all you have, to enjoy the skills it took decades to develop. And it takes many decades to accrue the wealth to do the things you want. But age quickly detracts from your ability to live life as you once did as a young man. That which was once taken for granted quickly extends beyond our ability to grasp.

Much of life’s enduring endeavors are meaningless and of little lasting value. It took him 20 years to get the tools and know-how to rebuild a car engine. “All that time spent, and for what”? He wondered, as he sat on a recliner.


I found it interesting how his lamentation echoed the wisdom of the book of Ecclesiastes.

“ I have seen all the things that are done under the sun; all of them are meaningless, a chasing after the wind” Ecclesiastes 1:14

There are things that have eternal significance. And there are things that don’t.

“Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal”. Matthew 6:9

If only we spent as much time in prayer as we do chasing after the wind.

The time taken to nurture one to Christ has more value than the global Ph.D. count.

An act of charity in Jesus’ name outweighs all of Steve Job’s Apple ingenuity and accomplishment.

An unknown painting made for God’s glory has more value in God’s eyes than the Mona Lisa.

A song sung off key yet praising God has more lasting value than the Beatle’s anthology.

Memorizing one small sentence spoken by the King of Kings from the New Testament has more value than memorizing all the lyrics of the king of rock-in-roll, or the king of pop, or the queen of soul.

Everything is meaningless, when you miss life’s meaning. Be eternally minded.

“As Jesus and his disciples were on their way, he came to a village where a woman named Martha opened her home to him. She had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet listening to what he said. But Martha was distracted by all the preparations that had to be made. She came to him and asked, “Lord, don’t you care that my sister has left me to do the work by myself? Tell her to help me!”

“Martha, Martha,” the Lord answered, “you are worried and upset about many things, but few things are needed—or indeed only one. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her.” Luke 10:38-42 NIV

Indeed. Mary has chosen what is better.

“ He answered, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind’; and, ‘Love your neighbour as yourself.’” Luke 10:27

Life offers nothing outside of God. And time spent with Him is better than time spent without. Mary sat at the Lord’s feet, and Jesus said, “Mary has chosen what is better”.