Dear Lord; Happy Wednesday Father!<\/p>\n
Tomorrow Lord, as You\u2019re well aware, here in the United States we\u2019ll be gathering together with family and friends to celebrate Thanksgiving.\u00a0 And while I absolutely love having that time to focus on togetherness and gratitude Father, for many this Holiday takes on an entirely different focus\u2026<\/p>\n
Details.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n Instead of dwelling in Your many Blessings and focusing on spending time with those we love Lord, for some the Holidays become a flurry of \u201cto-do lists\u201d<\/em>, household chores and shopping trips.\u00a0 And while some preparations are certainly necessary to host our festive gatherings, it\u2019s very easy to allow the myriad of details<\/span><\/em> to overwhelm us, and to take our eyes off the One who made it possible.<\/p>\n And while getting ready for work this morning Father, You decided I needed a reminder.<\/p>\n Standing in the shower, my mind wandered; so many things to do before tomorrow\u2026 I started a mental list, carefully going over all the details<\/span><\/em> of the day ahead, and trying to work out exactly how we\u2019d complete everything in the time we had remaining\u2026<\/p>\n \u201cLike Martha and Mary\u2026\u201d You whispered.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n Ouch!<\/p>\n \u201cNow as they went on their way, Jesus entered a village. And a woman named Martha welcomed him into her house.\u00a0And she had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet and listened to his teaching.\u00a0But Martha was distracted with much serving. And she went up to him and said, “Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to serve alone? Tell her then to help me.”\u00a0But the Lord answered her, “Martha, Martha, you are anxious and troubled about many things,\u00a0but one thing is necessary. Mary has chosen the good portion, which will not be taken away from her.”\u201d \u2013 Luke 10:38-42 (ESV)<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n Okay, okay\u2026 Point taken Father.\u00a0 \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n It\u2019s not about the house being spotless\u2026<\/em><\/p>\n It\u2019s not about mountains of carefully prepared food\u2026<\/em><\/p>\n It\u2019s not about a meticulously laid-out table\u2026<\/em><\/p>\n It\u2019s not about being the perfect host or hostess\u2026<\/em><\/p>\n It\u2019s not about the details<\/span>\u2026<\/em><\/p>\n It\u2019s about You Lord\u2026 All about You.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n Heavenly Father,<\/p>\n We thank You Lord, for the multitude of Blessings You grace our lives with each day. \u00a0As we prepare for the upcoming Holidays Father, please help focus our hearts to see past the tasks at hand, and prepare a spot at Jesus\u2019 feet where we might rest, and listen\u2026<\/p>\n In Jesus\u2019 name we pray,<\/p>\n Amen.<\/p>\n ~Phather Phil<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Dear Lord; Happy Wednesday Father! Tomorrow Lord, as You\u2019re well aware, here in the United States we\u2019ll be gathering together with family and friends to celebrate Thanksgiving.\u00a0 And while I absolutely love having that time to focus on togetherness and gratitude Father, for many this Holiday takes on an entirely different focus\u2026 Details. Instead of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1653,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3],"tags":[9,2102,168,419,12,107,129,915,610,308,1972,196,4,939,173,42,160,228,769,59,2178,444,731,140,273,593,916,804,1295,111,278,976,520,2181,269,682,2184,238,2183,141,506,1547,84,576,845,688,217,727,2073,545,461,2182,2185,476,544,114,226,225,2179,2180,2177,784,329,668,510,663,563,565,504,138],"class_list":["post-1652","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-daily-emails-to-god","tag-alone","tag-anxious","tag-bless","tag-blessing","tag-blessings","tag-care","tag-celebrate","tag-dear-lord","tag-different","tag-dwell","tag-esv","tag-eyes","tag-family","tag-family-and-friends","tag-father","tag-focus","tag-food","tag-friend","tag-giving","tag-grace","tag-gratitude","tag-happy","tag-head","tag-heart","tag-hearts","tag-heavenly","tag-heavenly-father","tag-help","tag-help-me","tag-holiday","tag-holidays","tag-house","tag-household","tag-household-chores","tag-jesus","tag-listen","tag-martha-and-mary","tag-mental","tag-mental-list","tag-mind","tag-morning","tag-multitude-of-blessings","tag-name","tag-necessary","tag-need","tag-possible","tag-pray","tag-rest","tag-season-of-thanksgiving","tag-serving","tag-shopping","tag-shopping-trips","tag-sit-at-jesus-feet","tag-teach","tag-teaching","tag-thank-you","tag-thanks","tag-thanksgiving","tag-those-we-love","tag-to-do-lists","tag-togetherness","tag-tomorrow","tag-trip","tag-trouble","tag-troubled","tag-wednesday","tag-welcomed","tag-whispered","tag-will","tag-work"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/11\/xl_christ_in_the_house_of_martha_and_mary-cropped.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p18mMc-qE","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1652","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1652"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1652\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1656,"href":"https:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1652\/revisions\/1656"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1653"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1652"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1652"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1652"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}