For Kirwan Uniting Church's Keep in Touch pew sheet 24 November 2019

I have Ramblers’ Block.  A Bible app (Olive Tree, great value) and a couple of commentaries are open on my iMac in front of me, I have besought the Lord at least thrice for inspiration, but my mind is blank.  In Matthew 6, Jesus tells us to go into our room and pray. I’ve done that, I’m in my study right now, the walls lined with assorted theological and devotional treatises.
Also in my room is the dog, barking at everyone who has the temerity to walk past or live over the road. As if that wasn’t distraction enough, off to my right is an iPad streaming the Australia Pakistan Gabba Test.
OK Boomer, you say, but I bet I’m not the only Christian who is the cause of his or her own distraction.  Adept (ish) multi-tasker as I am, I can’t give serious attention to God’s Word and something else at the same time.  Prayer is a little different, I can pray while I’m driving (don’t try the old evangelist’s “While every head is bowed and every eye closed” thing), or walking, or  on a gym exercise machine.  But the sort of earnest prayer which requires waiting on God for how to pray in the first place, requires the same single-mindedness as Bible study.
We’re familiar with the story of poor Martha in Luke 10, who was stuck in the kitchen while her sister was hobnobbing with Jesus in the living room.  Jesus’ admonition to Martha seems a bit harsh, “Your sister has chosen what is better”, after all who was going to make Jesus’ tea? Sometimes we have to drop what we’re doing and sit, metaphorically, at Jesus’ feet.
Psalm 27,”One thing I ask from the Lord, this only do I seek: that I may …. gaze on the beauty of the Lord and seek him in his temple.”   In His temple, not on Kayo Sports.

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