Latest / Beliefs, Ballots, And BullDawgs / Tuesday 5/5/26
Transcript
- Greg: What's up guys and welcome to today's episode it is Tuesday May the 5th It is Cinco de Mayo in fact and ⁓ contrary to popular belief that is not a celebration of Mexican independence But you found me. This is a Greg Miller. I'm the host here This is beliefs ballots and bets gonna be another quick and practical show with a little focus on scripture and some daily applications and then we're gonna mix in a Handful of sports wagering plays and see if we can put a little money in everybody's pocket Today we're gonna we're sharpen kind of a simple discipline it the scripture comes from the the book of Luke chapter 10 verses 38 through 42. This is it's parable I think we are a little story from Jesus I think we're all very familiar with between Martha and Mary, but let's get into the word as Jesus and his disciples were on their way He came to a village where a woman named Martha opened her home to him She had a sister called Mary who sat at the Lord's feet listening to what he said But Martha was distracted by all the preparations that had to be made. She came to him and asked, Lord, don't you care that my sister has left me to do the work all by myself? Tell her to help me. Martha, Martha, the Lord answered, you are worried and upset about many things, but few things are needed or indeed only one. Mary has chosen what is better and it will not be taken away from her. This is a, it's a very powerful, powerful word. considering what we deal with in this day, just being overwhelmed with the ability to stay busy and preoccupied. I think Luke is telling us here, it's kind of a core dynamic where he is showing us that, even good activities can become a spiritual problem if they're interfering with your intimacy with Christ. In this case, Mary was deliberate and sitting at full attention at Jesus' feet. And Martha was being very productive, very busy and trying to do all the little things like we all get caught up doing every day. And Jesus let her know that, hey, that distraction is not what's important. ⁓ It was a worthy service that she was trying to initiate, but it was not what he believed and what we all know to be the most important thing. And his correction in this moment shows us that, know, presence with him is the center point for all that we do. ⁓ You know, just being busy doesn't mean you're being faithful. Even if it's things that you can be doing good things, and if you're not doing them for the right reasons, ⁓ then it's not going to carry the weight scripturally, and it's not going to carry the weight with your relationship with God. ⁓ We revert back to the book of Psalms, where David is asking the Lord to search his heart, and the Lord knows what our intentions are. And so even sometimes if we're doing things that from the outside may look good to others, that's not what it's all about. And none of what we do should be about the image or anything of that nature. And this busyness can really get in the way because it creates an environment of fragmented attention, which then therefore reduces your capacity to get in the Word or to even sit still and quiet long enough and free your mind to have a five or 10 minute prayer. So those are some things that we have to be aware of and Jesus is is very specific and very intentional I believe here and letting us know that that he is the center point he is What is what is most important and no matter what you're doing? matter what is going on around you? Every now and then the right thing to do and the absolute best thing to do is to take a few minutes and just sit at his feet and listen got a couple of practical applications that we're gonna talk about today that will help us try to avoid some distractions and avoid the feeling to stay busy and to always have our minds occupied and have our spirit feel complacent that we're doing something and we're being productive. So one of those things is a really, really simple one. We all have these phones in our pocket all day every day in our pocket if not in our hands already and and one of the things is you know It's one thing if you get a message you get a call or something You just need to handle that in the moment But how many times a day do you just randomly pick up your phone because you're bored and what I want to try to tell you is Make it try to make it a habit from now on When you go to pick up your phone just out of boredom not because you're getting a call or a text or something you have to handle But when you're just sitting there casually and you go to grab your phone just to start scrolling, before you do that, pause. Pause for one minute. Just say a quick prayer, say, God, I'm about to dig into this phone, I'm about to start scrolling. Let me know what you want my attention directed to. Just a quick little pause before you open that devil device that's gonna consume you for so long. And then the other one is also related to the phone and the devices, and that's... That one's gonna be probably tough for some of you, although it really shouldn't be. that's make it a point two or three times a day to try to go at least 10 minutes without your phone even being present. Put it in another room, leave it inside, go for a quick walk outside, just something. Try to do two or three times a day where you completely detach yourself from your phone. We all know this, and sometimes I think it gets lost to us, but all of these platforms are... everything on social media is just designed to capture attention. All of the notifications, the variable reward systems like likes and views and retweets and all this stuff. Videos popping on autoplay where it just goes from one video to the next. It's essentially turned our attention into one of the hottest commodities in the world right now. And as we studied yesterday, where your treasure is, is where your heart is. And make no mistake about it, your attention, especially in this times that we live in, your attention is a massive treasure. And so wherever your attention is, is where your heart's gonna be as well. And this constant bombardment and inundated with distractions and just busyness, it really does have a ⁓ deep impact on other aspects of your life. Spiritually, this crazy chaotic world we live in makes it harder to have deep f***ing prayer moments, to have deep scriptural study moments because our attention spans are just so short. We are tempted at times to do it as a checklist and to knock it off rather than actually worship Him. And then relationally, it's so hard for us to connect with one another now. I I see teenage kids and younger that can barely look you in the eye or have a face-to-face conversation because everything they have known is wrapped up in their phone. We all sit in rooms or at meals and you can have four or five people sitting within 10 feet of each other and nobody's interacting with each other. They're all interacting with their devices. have entered a stage in life where we have such little common occurrences. We're not sharing experiences anymore. Everybody's living in their own little world and their own experience. And we go back to the story, like, she just wanted to be present. in his moment. Like in that moment she wanted to be present with him and nothing else mattered. And from time to time I think we should all regroup and get back to that. ⁓ We get in this thing where everything we do is about seeking a status and trying to portray an image. And she wasn't concerned about that. She wasn't trying to impress Jesus by doing all of the things. She just wanted to sit there and listen. And whether it's your spouse or your kids or a good friend. Sometimes just your presence is what somebody's asking for. And I think that's what Jesus is trying to tell us here is not only do we need to be present for one another, but we need to make sure from time to time we cut off all these darn distractions and just focus on being present with Him. ⁓ You know, some of the tech hedges and some things we can do is, you know, be particular about which applications on your phone you'll even allow to send you a notification. You have time limit. options in your settings now so you can do these things and you can make it easier on yourself by setting some things in place and setting some habits and sticking to them. But for starters, I said, let's start simple. Let's try to do the two we talked about. If you're going to pick up your phone just to doom scroll, take a minute and pause before you do and just say a quick prayer and say, God, I'm turning this over to you and see what pops up on your phone when you give him a heads up that that's where you're going. And the second one is, well I totally forgot that, the second one is our... I totally did forget, really, crazy. ⁓ the 10 minute phone free time. Yeah, two or three times a day, just try to go for a walk around outside. Just do something. Go to a different room in the house and leave your phone sitting somewhere else. Put it in a drawer, hide it. Just 10 minutes at a time. Try it for a couple of days and see if those stretches of 10 minutes don't become some of your favorite points of the day where you just know that foam is not gonna consume you and that phone is not gonna get to you. So try those things and get back to me. All right, guys, let's get to we got three plays on the books today. We've got a basketball play and two baseball plays, which seems to be kind of a three. We are coming off a nice three and ⁓ day yesterday. We've been on a really good string. I think we're nine and three in our last 12. So that's that's stacking some coin for you guys. And that's never a bad thing. First play, we're to go with the NBA play. We're going to the Lakers. OKC. I love this. OKC team. They are going to be tough to match up with for anybody in the West or the East for that matter. I love their defensive intensity. Give me, give me the under two 13 and a half. I think okay. See wins by double digits. I would be surprised if the Lakers get to triple digits and a hundred points. So give me the under two 13 and a half in the NBA, the Lakers at the thunder. ⁓ and then we're going to go with baseball plays. We've got Milwaukee and St. Louis. We're going over the total of eight runs in that one. And then the final play of the day is going to be the Cleveland guardians at the Kansas city Royals. Price might have moved on this one when I locked it in this morning. It was Kansas City plus 105 giving the Royals at home It was small plus money to try to get the win and let's see if we can get back to back three in no days That would be a that would be nice As we summarize guys remember, you know, Luke is telling us in chapter 10 in these verses He's telling us and reminding us that of all the things we get consumed with and all the things we get caught up doing daily weekly monthly presence with Jesus is to proceed all of that. And especially in the cases where you're trying to do productive things, you're trying to have a positive impact, Jesus needs to be involved. His presence will improve your chances of being productive and having a productive ministry. We live in a world that is designed to steal our intention, so let's create some small habits to put ourselves in a place to where ⁓ we can maybe offset some of those things. Start small, be gentle with yourself. This stuff won't be easy, but pause for a minute before you open your phone. Take two or three times a day and just get out of the presence of your phone. Go in a different room, go outside, whatever it is. I'm telling you, these little things will help. And as always, guys, I appreciate you listening. If you're hearing what I'm saying here, like it, share it, subscribe, turn on notifications, do all the things to try to help spread the word. But beyond all that, get in your Bibles, say your prayers, love each other, and tell the truth. God bless.