Hi, and welcome to the Five Word Prayers Daily, a five-day-a-week, daily devotional where we share the word, prayers, in our heart.

I'm Lisa Whittle, and I welcome you to just five minutes with me, which I trust and pray will be five minutes well spent.

This is our hardest things month, talking about spiritual disciplines, the hardest things God asks us to do for all of us, which then takes on different forms in our

individual lives, what that looks like and how it's possible with his help, of course, to

accomplish these things that seem on the surface to be contradictory. Today, we're going to get

into this one. How does God ask us to have a single focus in life, kingdom living, and yet ask us to

multitask and juggle all we have to do? Seems to be at odds, right? Diving in right after this.

I love the idea we're talking about how God seems to contradict himself by saying certain things like,

hey, have a single focus, just one purpose in life. But while you're doing that, also juggle 10,000

things. My life is one big juggle most of the time it seems. And I have to tell you, I don't always do it

very well. Many days, I feel like the balls are falling from the air.

I've had so much going on lately. I told someone, I feel like I am now juggling fire torches instead

of balls. Have I said that on here before? I feel like I have. You understand. I know because

you relate. Life is crazy and busy and crazy busy, but we are still called to single focus. And how is that

even possible when we can't sit for 10 minutes for a quiet time, or at least we think we can't?

I love what my mom says in the book, Seven Hardest Things. Without a central focus on Jesus,

all of our well-meaning spiritual multitasking will only amount to a random

frenzy of pointless, misdirected energy and activity. Man, can I ever relate to that? So here's what I

translate that to me. What we attempt to do in our lives must be rooted in something or it's futile. I think the

point of how do I focus on Jesus amidst the chaos of my life and the world is this. It's the only way

we will survive, really. So there's no other choice. Some of us desperately need a refocus, especially of our affections,

as we've given them away to other things. Colossians 3-2 makes it clear, set your affections on

...