One Thing At A Time
Few things are more destructive of real achievement than dissipation of interest and effort. Every one these days has "too many irons in the fire; too many claimants on his time and strength to give to any one his real best. And the tragedy is that the concerns of time and sense are so imperious in the calls and so demanding in their, exactions, that many, even among those who call themselves children of God, yield to these exigencies of the present and neglect the needs of the soul and the concerns of eternity.
Jesus realized the futility of a divided loyalty and the danger of a dissipation of real interests. He said one day, in an effort to focus attentions upon this very point, "No servant can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon." And his one point of emphasis was that men should serve God, giving him at all times the warmth of their affection and the vigor of their constitution, and then, of what there was left of time and energy, he affirmed they would find quite enough to supply the material necessities of life; and to validate the assurance he added the unalterable promise of his own word.
But how easy it is when the affairs with which we have to do in this life press upon us from every direction, the most of which are thoroughly laudable and right in their place, for us to give way a little here and a little there, until we find ourselves wholly consumed by these temporal interests. We need, Oh, tremendously we need to have impressed upon our minds, that these opportunities to serve God and eternal interests will not wait for temporal concerns no matter how pressing; that they will not tarry, and that if we do not deliberately choose them and seize them at the expense of many things of lesser value, we shall one day find that like the man in the prophet's parable to king Ahab, "As thy servant was busy here and there" they will be gone.