Several weeks ago I felt challenged about how I was spending my time. It would be an understatement to say that life is busy. I’m constantly – as I’m sure you are – barraged by phone calls, emails, text messages, tweets, Facebook updates and face-to-face meetings. Social networking happens at all hours of the day. Coffee dates with friends are slammed right next to conference calls and meetings. Gym workouts are superseded by the growling in my stomach and the heaviness of my eyelids.

I wouldn’t trade the connectedness of my life for anything. I love getting the email from a friend in Switzerland saying that she will be in the country this fall and would like to know how close Seattle is to Atlanta so we can visit. I love encouraging text messages from friends. I love phone calls from friends and family. I love the ability to easily stay in touch with everyone from my childhood friends to my newest friends.

What weighs heavy on me is how easily I slip in to the chaos of life and allow it get me off track from the things that matter most. Life’s issues have a keen ability to take the front seat and push the healthy items to the trunk.

I’m reminded of the parable of the sower in Mark 4:19 – “Still others, like seed sown among thorns, hear the word; but the worries of this life, the deceitfulness of wealth and the desires for other things come in and choke the word, making it unfruitful.”

I’ve only heard this story used to illustrate circumstances when an individual puts his or her faith in Jesus. But doesn’t it also apply to mature Christians? How easily we fall in to the trap of focusing on our circumstances instead of the One who can help us through our circumstances. We allow the irritations of life to pull us away from our only true source of soothing. Life’s worries choke out the Word and make us unfruitful.

The great qualities of relationship with friends and family, of staying connected, of keeping an active social calendar, of climbing the corporate ladder and of so much of life, can so easily overshadow the eternally impacting qualities of relationship with God.

If I’ve learned anything from my current state of perpetual motion, it’s that I want to be a person who leans in to God when things get difficult or busy, not one who lets the chaos edge out my relationship with the Lord.