Norma Farber’s wonderful poem, “The Queens Came Late”, changed my life. It’s about several royal queens who want to see the newborn Christ child. They leave their busy lives behind in order to see this marvellous sight.
They brought Mary a clean dress and a pot of soup. They sang her a song too. I hope it really was a song and not a to-do-list!
They only stayed a few minutes because they had homes full of to-do-lists, piles of laundry, uncooked dinners, business meetings and children.
A child wants to play at the beach but laundry waits. A friend wants a lunch date but there are so many errands to catch up on. Hubby wants to spend a quiet evening together but we are already late from work and two volunteer meetings and six dozen home-made cookies for the school bake sale take up our time.
God wants to talk with us. “Later,” we cry.
Like Martha, we will continue to complain about the unreasonable demands on our time until we admit that we are the ones in charge of our list.
Face it. We set our schedule. We can reduce our work load. We can say no.
“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.–Luke 10:40 (NIV)
Prayer: Lord, help us spend our time wisely, —.beginning with you. Amen.
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