Before I jump in, let me tell you CLEARLY what Jesus is trying to tell Martha. There are a million women’s books on this scene. We all need to be both Mary (Worshipful) AND Martha (Working). The problem was, Jesus was in their presence for only a short time, and there was plenty of time for people to be hard at work, but they all should have been sitting at the feet of Jesus soaking up every moment He was with them! (Okay now to the regularly scheduled Devo)

Have you ever had a smoke detector start chirping because the battery is dying? That little chirp is one of the most annoying sounds known to mankind. You can be sitting in the middle of the night and suddenly, beep. You ignore it. Ten minutes later, beep. You try to sleep through it. Beep. You finally get up, take the battery out, and then realize you don't have another one. So now you are standing on a chair at two in the morning wondering if you can just throw the whole smoke detector in the trash. BEEP!? There is a special back up battery just for the dead battery alarm!? That little notification has completely taken over the room.

Now think about how many notifications are competing for our attention every single day. Our phones buzz. Our watches vibrate. The television is playing in the background. Social media wants us to see something. Someone wants us to respond to something. The news wants us to know something. An app wants us to buy something. A game wants us to come back. And before long, we have trained ourselves to respond to every little beep, buzz, banner, and vibration.

The crazy part is that most of these notifications are not actually urgent. They just feel urgent because they have been designed to get our attention. And once we answer them, we often discover something else. We think we are using the technology, but in many ways the technology is using us. Our attention is valuable. Our information is valuable. Our habits are valuable. There are entire industries built around keeping us looking, clicking, scrolling, watching, buying, and coming back. The goal is to keep us engaged because our attention has become a commodity. Research published in 2026 found that social media notifications can temporarily disrupt cognitive processing, with the effect influenced by the frequency of notifications and habitual checking behavior. WHAT?!?!?!

While all of that is happening, we are also being discipled. We may not think of it that way, but we are. Every day the culture is telling us what to value, what to desire, what to fear, what to buy, what to look like, what success looks like, what relationships should look like, what we should be angry about, and what kind of person we should become. We are constantly being invited to conform to somebody else's image, but Jesus didn't call us to be disciples of the culture… He called us to be disciples of Christ.

That is why Luke 10 is so important. Martha was busy serving Jesus, but Jesus said she was worried and distracted by many things. Mary had chosen something better. She sat at the feet of Jesus and listened to Him. love that because Martha wasn't doing something bad. She was doing something good. She was serving. She was working. She was taking care of things that needed to be done, but even good things can become distractions when they pull us away from the thing that matters most.

We can do the exact same thing with our phones, our televisions, our schedules, our hobbies, our work, and our endless stream of information. We can become so accustomed to the noise that silence actually makes us uncomfortable. We can sit down for five minutes and immediately reach for our phone because we don't know what to do with a quiet mind anymore.

What if the Holy Spirit has been trying to speak and we have simply been too distracted to listen? What if God isn't silent? What if we're just noisy?

In your life, it’s time to turn down the noise. Turn off some notifications. Put the phone away for a while. Turn off the television when nobody is watching it. Let the car ride be quiet. Sit outside without your phone. Give yourself some space where nothing is demanding an immediate response from you.

And then just listen… Not for another notification. Not for another opinion. Not for another headline. Not for that incessant beeping reminder… Listen for the voice of an omnipresent God. Focus on His voice.

Today’s Prayer

Almighty God, 

Help me quiet the noise around me and quiet the noise within me. Help me recognize the distractions that constantly demand my attention and give me the courage to turn them down. I don't want the world shaping my thoughts, desires, and identity. I want to be shaped by You. Holy Spirit, help me slow down, listen, and remember that I am a disciple of Jesus. Give me ears to hear Your voice and a heart willing to follow You. 

In the peace-bringing name of Jesus, amen.