Many people try to be involved in many different ministries and find themselves being in pulled in multiple different directions. But as Beth Moore talks about in this video, you cannot be all about a thousand different things, but instead you should devote yourself to just a couple things and let those take priority.
Learn more about Entrusted: A Study of 2 Timothy.
The entire video is above, and the complete transcript is below.
You better choose a couple of things you want to be about.
For me, let me tell you, when I began writing and it became clear to me what it was going to take and that in order to write, it became clear to me that I was not going to be able to do a thousand different things. I was gonna have to make a decision and it was gonna have to be something that I was gonna lock into and I was gonna have just make some really hard choices to let some things go.
And so, I made a very conscious decision – and I’d like to say to you because I don’t want to kid you – a costly decision that I was gonna be after two things and that was gonna be my family and the ministry that God had called me to. And I got it in my head, I thought, here’s what I want. Here’s what I know I want to prioritize. I know when my life is over that these are gonna be the things I’m gonna answer for.
And I know this for sure, this part was not difficult. It was not hard for me to choose my family, because I did not want to miss that. I did not want to miss my kids. I did not want them to think, “Well, you know, I hope you all are blessed, but I never see my mother.” I did not want that. I don’t want somebody to say to my grandchildren, “Have you seen that series or have you read that book?” I want them to have a grandmother.
I want my husband to have a wife. And thank God, I had the kind of man that just wasn’t gonna share. He just wasn’t. I look back on this and I think how could I have been any more blessed that I had a man that when he came in from work, did not even entertain the thought that I was gonna do ministry all evening? It never occurred to him. That’s not what I got to do. But I can tell you this, I’ve been a wife to my husband because he wasn’t gonna have it any other way and that has been to my great blessing.
My social life just circled the drain, you can imagine. I lost friends over it, and I want to say this to you so that this is really clear, it hurt. If they said, “Well I just wasn’t important to you,” that’s not true. That’s not true. If you asked me, “Do you miss them?” Yes, yes.
Here’s the thing, you will have a lot of things you wish you could do, but they may not have anything to do with what you really want your life to be about when it’s all said and done. There is no living this thing a second time. This is the shot we’ve got at it. Something’s got to go.
Now, I don’t mean I gave up all my friends because I got me some friends alright. I’ve got me some staunch, fellow sojourners, but you know what? What I had to do was that I had to find some friends that were kinda into it in the same kind of way in that they understood the grind and they understood the priority. That’s what I had to find. People that would just go, “Listen, in a week and half when we talk again, we’re gonna have a great time. Maybe in a month.”
Because what I found, forgive me, is I just don’t think you can flourish in a friendship where you’re apologizing all the time because you’ve disappointed them. After a while, I start breaking down there. After a while, that’s not what I call a good friendship. We got some of kind of weird relationship going, but every time I’m with them, every time I call, I have to apologize. Every time I’m with them, I have to apologize because I’ve not been able to be there all those times. After a while, you know what you do? You just start pulling away because I really can’t take that.
But something has got to go for there to be some sanity. Because some of us, we’re like nuts. We’re just like nuts. And you’re looking for permission to just start scaling back some things. You know what? Consider you’ve got it. And not from me, from the Word of God that says, “Whatever you do, do it to the glory of God,” (Colossians 3:17). And I promise you, based on the authority of the Word of God and the experience of human life, you cannot do a hundred things to the glory of God. You will not be the first one that does it. You will not turn out to be superwoman. It will not happen. You will not multi-task all of that without half of it dropping.
So we humble ourselves and know that our friends are talking about us. What can we do?
