Putting Distractions in Their Place, Part 2

Episode Description

In this inspiring episode, Cheryl Marshall continues her conversation with Dr. Shelbi Cullen on the theme, "Putting Distractions in Their Place." Together, they revisit the story of Mary and Martha, exploring how even good responsibilities can hinder our worship if misplaced. Dr. Shelbi Cullen offers practical wisdom on identifying heart-level distractions, trusting the Lord with our time, and finding contentment in both service and quiet devotion. This is a must-listen for anyone seeking to live a life wholly devoted to God amid the busyness and noise of daily life.

Key Topics

• Re-examining Martha: Misconceptions and Her True Faithfulness 
• Heart Motives: When Service Gets in the Way of Worship
• Trust & Control: Letting Go and Leaning on God’s Timing
• Jesus’ Tender Correction & How He Shepherds Us in Our Weakness
• The Change in Martha: Comparison of Luke 10 & John 12
• Three Truths For Putting Distractions in Their Place
  • Worship as the Central Focus
  • Service Overflowing From Worship
  • Guarding Against Subtle Distractions
• Practical Ways to Abide & Commune With Christ Daily
• A Prayer for Listeners

Takeaways

• Worship is, first and foremost, a posture of the heart and must remain central even in busy seasons.
• Martha’s story reminds us that good service can become a distraction when our hearts lose focus on Christ.
• True service and ministry should overflow from love for Christ, not replace our worship of Him.
• Jesus corrects us with gentleness and love; He invites distracted, weary people to come to Him for rest.
• It’s easy to be pulled away by responsibilities, technology, and others' opinions. Spiritual disciplines help us reorient our hearts.
• When distracted, we can confidently return to Christ, who is always compassionate, never distant or impatient.
• Abiding in Christ, being rooted in His Word and prayer, empowers both our worship and our service.

Resources Mentioned

Key Verses:

Luke 10:38-42

John 12:1-8

Book: All of Me: Pursuing a Life Wholly Devoted to God by Cheryl Marshall 

Book: Steadfast in Every Season: Seeing God’s Faithfulness in the Lives of Women of the Bible by Dr. Shelbi Cullen. 

Techniques for practical Bible study: Discovering Wonderful Things worksheet, focusing on observation, interpretation, and application.

The Women’s Hope Podcast (co-hosted by Dr. Shelby Cullen)

Next Steps / Calls To Action

• Reflect: Pause and ask: What’s distracting you from worship and whole-hearted devotion to God?
• Read: Dig into Luke 10:38–42 and John 12 this week, meditating on the examples of both Mary and Martha.
• Abide: Prioritize time at Jesus’ feet: consider removing distractions (like your phone) during your Scripture and prayer times.
• Connect: Share this episode with a friend who wrestles with busyness and the tension between serving and being still.
• Engage: Subscribe, rate, and review Whole Life Worship wherever you listen, and check out Cheryl's new book, All of Me, for deeper study and encouragement in pursuing a life wholly devoted to God.
• Follow Cheryl Marshall:
  Instagram, Facebook, Substack, YouTube
  Subscribe to Cheryl’s Newsletter

Thanks for tuning in to Whole Life Worship. Keep pursuing a life wholly devoted to God, without compromise, comparison, or distraction!

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:10

Welcome to Whole Life Worship. This is Cheryl Marshall, and I'm so glad you're with us today as we pursue lives wholly devoted to God, without compromise, without comparison, in every circumstance. This is Whole Life Worship. In this episode, we continue part two of our discussion with Shelby Cullen about putting distractions in their place. Let's now jump back into the conversation. Martha is often cast as the ne'er do well in this story, but in your book and in your chapter, you actually talk about her faithfulness. And you write this about Martha. You say Martha's labor, though different, was also a sincere expression of devotion, representing the best display of service she knew how to offer. So how do you think we may sometimes misread or miscast Martha? And what was her faithfulness?

SPEAKER_01 1:10

Yeah, well, I think without knowing maybe the other parts of Martha in the scriptures, you could you could easily come to this because she's mentioned it in other places, but you could easily come to this narrative, and and I've heard people be pretty extreme and say she's like an unbeliever or something like that. And you're like, well, where did you get that? Where did you get that from? I mean, that's definitely not what's going on here. We've got a family that Jesus loves. Why would he even stop at Martha's house? I mean, you can tell there's a relationship there. So I think she's been characterized as someone that's unfaithful or unbelieving, or you know, she was, I would say, because Jesus tells her not to be worried or anxious. We we know she's sinning in a particular way, but it's not because, you know, it's not she's not an unbeliever, I guess. So with that being said, yeah, I don't know. She, I'm trying to think of other ways she's being characterized. I think it's mostly that they're really hard on her, usually, that she, I don't know, that she's just a bad example or something like that.

SPEAKER_00 2:17

So I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 2:19

What else have you heard?

SPEAKER_00 2:21

No, that's that's what I've heard, but I think it is interesting to say she was seeking to be faithful. She was doing the things that God tells us to do, be hospitable, care for your home, care for others. But she crossed the line at some point, which leads to my next question. We see her approaching Christ and she begins to complain, and she even tells them what to do. And it's almost as if she's oblivious to how she is responding to the Lord. And so that made me wonder how can we discern when our own responsibilities or or activities or priorities, as good as they may be, are now actually hindering our worship and our honor of the Lord. How can we discern that in our own hearts? Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 3:07

Well, Jesus tells us that it's out of the heart the bowel speaks. And so, you know, the the dynamic that's going on here is that Martha started out with right motives, I think. You know, welcoming someone into your home, wanting to serve you a meal, uh, practicing hospitality, loving on you and serving you in a way that would be expected. It's a way to love people for sure. We do it all the time ourselves. But when you get so distracted by the preparations that that becomes the sole focus to the point where the scripture says that you're literally being sort of torn apart on the in in the inner man as a result, you can imagine that if that's your sole focus at the heart level, that out of the mouth is going to come things like, well, worry for one, and just I I see sinful anger in the narrative. I see fruit in there that would be in keeping with somebody that's worried and anxious about their life for sure. And so I think the moment, if I were to take it into my own life, the moment I realize that I am short with people, especially usually your husband, right? When you're short and you're or with your children, you know, they're your closest neighbor in your house, usually, and I'm not honoring the Lord through my thoughts and my actions. I need to take a pause and I need to check my heart and ask myself, what's going on here? You know, why am I responding this way? And of course, Jesus is trying to tell Martha that she's making this whole dinner too much about herself, you know, too much about that is the main thing for her. And it and she she I think that we go into these things so so with such great ideas of wanting to serve and love people, but that whole thing can become very captivating and almost like an idol that we're worshiping in a lot of ways that we forget the whole point that it's not about you, it's about Christ, you know. Right. Yeah, so I think that's you know, I know the word distraction, Luke used it very carefully. It just means literally to be dragged away. So her preparations are literally dragging her away. And I think as women, we totally understand what that means. I don't even think it's hard to understand.

SPEAKER_00 5:24

No, we get it. We see it often in ourselves, don't we? Yeah. So let's say, let's say there's a woman who's listening right now and she says, Oh my, I am more of a Martha than I am a Mary. What is your counsel to her if she is thinking or feeling that if she takes time for the Lord to focus on him, she won't be able to sufficiently meet the needs or expectations of others. She feels like if I do that, I can't do everything that's needed over here. What would be your counsel to how she should view that or reframe that in her thinking?

SPEAKER_01 6:02

Well, let's see. I I think sometimes we have this desire to control, and I think we're just not trusting the Lord with our time, really. And I I mean, I understand the tension here. I mean, realistically speaking, if she's trying to get dinner on for probably could be Jesus in the 12, could be Jesus in the 70, I don't know. It doesn't really sound really clear. It's not just Jesus alone, though. Right, right. I I understand the dynamic of feeling pressure and oh my goodness, it's a lot. But Lord, I need to stop and pray. Lord, I just need to trust you with this. This is an overwhelming situation, but I know that you can use it for my good and your glory. So just help me to serve these people with a heart that's just devoted to you. And it may not look, I may not get the dinner on the table, I don't know, at the right time or whatever. But that's not the point. The point is I'm loving my neighbor as myself right now, you know. I'm just serving these people through the meal. And it never says in the narrative that she asked Mary to help her, but honestly, I think that if she would have, she probably would have. I I I'm just guessing, of course, it's speculation. And also just trusting, like the Lord is there, you know, he could probably do a few things if she asked him in the right way. You know, um I don't know. But I think it's just for me, as I've thought through this narrative over the years, what is it really? And I it's really come down to do you trust the Lord with your time, you know, in these precarious situations. Do you really trust the Lord? So in my life, being a very busy person with work and then ministries at home and ministries at church, sometimes I think it just feels super overwhelming because you just got a lot on your plate. And I have to pause often and say, Lord, I it feels it's beginning to feel overwhelming. We know what the feeling feels like, right? But I don't want to sin in the process of serving in all these different ways. So help me just to trust you with my time. It may be that I have to cut back on something, maybe I have to call someone to let them know that unfortunately I'm running late. Don't help me not to make it about me because we can be so quick to be more focused on our reputation or what people think about us, and we just forget what we're doing. It's not worship at all. Well, it's worship of self at that point, really. But how can I just worship you through my trust of my time? And I've just been in that situation so many times. Of course, there's uh times when I haven't done that perfectly, but I have learned that to truly worship the Lord is just you're giving your whole heart, soul, and mind to him. You're loving him. And sometimes, yeah, you know, when we overdo it, you learn from it, but you just gotta trust him. You gotta trust him through it. You know, it's hard, but yeah, that's that's kind of where I've I've landed on that.

SPEAKER_00 9:00

Recently, I think a lesson I've been learning is that I trust in time or I put my hope in time instead of in the Lord. Like I need to have enough time, or I don't have enough time, and that can really throw me off. And I was really convicted that my hope is in the Lord, it's not in how much time I have. And I think that's something that a lot of us struggle with. We never feel like we have enough time, and yet the Lord is over it all. He is the Lord of time, and he will give us what we need, and we can trust him in that. So I think that's a lesson we learn over and over again. Absolutely. Yeah. Well, let's move on and let's look to Jesus in this passage. And we see here that Jesus doesn't rebuke Martha harshly. His tone appears to be tender, even repeating her name, Martha, Martha, but he also points out her problem very directly. You are worried and bothered about many things. And so I was going to ask you, what is he saying here with the words worried and bothered? I know you've already alluded to that, dragging away. But what about the worried word here? What is he communicating to her?

SPEAKER_01 10:14

Yeah, I mean, you know, in the original language, when you look at the word worried, it it kind of has this idea of divided heart or literally a heart that's being ripped. It's just kind of very visual. And I just think Jesus is simply saying that you are being torn because you are so focused on all these other things that are not eternal, really. You know, we get so it's kind of like Matthew 6, you know, we get anxious about our life with all the temporary trappings, you know, all the different things that we think are more important, all the treasures of this earth. And yet, as Jesus even talks in that sermon, and yet not not one flower, one bird, you know, one thing in creation, you know, goes hungry, or, you know, it's it's it's it's again, it goes back to trust. And so I think he's just saying the the one thing that's really necessary, which Mary is emulating, is sitting at his feet and allowing him to shepherd you with his word. I think it's a I think Luke may be thinking about what Matthew wrote, that it's a way of seeking his kingdom first. It's a way of making Jesus the priority. It's not, he's not saying, you know, because you can have, you can have in the Bible, we do have godly care, you know, and the word Mermanato, it's not just ungodly. It's not just worry. It can be, it can be in a way that is godly as well. And I think he's just saying your godly concern, getting all these things prepared and ready, serving has kind of crossed the line into ungodly care here. You're so bothered about that that it's literally ripping your heart or divide it, you're you're kind of losing, you're losing the priority of the moment, and Mary's emulating that. And so, you know, it the he's rebuking her, but like you said, it's gentle. It kind of makes me think of what he says in Matthew 11, you know, if you're weary and laid down, heavy laden, you know, he offers rest, so come to him. It's kind of another way. It's I I feel like that's his shepherding that he's saying, Come to me. You're you're obviously weighed down with worries here, right? And I'll give you rest for your soul.

SPEAKER_00 12:32

Yes, yes. So we hear him being gentle, we hear him being direct, and when we see that, what does that reveal about how he views us in our sin and weakness? And how should that shape how we come to him?

SPEAKER_01 12:47

Oh, yeah, that's such a great question. Because I think, firstly, Jesus is God and he knows our heart. But we we we should remember firstly that he he corrected Martha not because he lacked compassion for her, he actually had a lot of compassion for her. He just he, I think he really loves her. And we know from the scriptures it says that he loves all three of you know, her and and Mary and their brother Lazarus anyway. But I think what's so comforting is again that when you are weary and heavy laden, Jesus understands that and he invites us, even when we're distracted, to come to him. He calls the weary to himself, he describes himself as humble and gentle. I mean, the one of my favorite passages in scripture, in fact, is in Hebrews 4, where he describes, where he is described as a sympathetic high priest, and so he's one who understands us deeply than even our closest friends or even our spouse ever could. He knows our frame, right? John even tells us that the one who comes to him, he's he will never cast out. So that comforts me personally, and it should comfort anybody knowing that Christ addresses even distracted disciples tenderly because we can be so distracted. I mean, he didn't crush Martha, you know. Um, he just he just reoriented Martha. I I like to look at it as a loving reorient reorientation of priorities. And I think that's important for us to remember when our own hearts go adrift. I mean, they often do. We we we can become very easily cold or spiritually distracted, and and and we assume people have a very low view of God, unfortunately, because if they're not in the scriptures, they're not renewing their mind in this way. But we assume that Jesus is impatient with us. But actually, if you read the through the gospels about his life, scripture shows that he's actually compassionate towards weak sheep, you know, sheep. We're all sheep, we all go astray. He calls us back to himself. And so I think the answer to distraction is not just better discipline, because we talked about how important spiritual disciplines are, and they are, but ultimately it's about seeing Christ clearly again and adoration of Christ, I think just affreshes our hearts because we're beholding him. And so, you know, we we we just need to learn, we're not perfect disciples, we're just not the sight of heaven. And so we are returning to him because he's the perfect savior, and and he's and and despite that, I think what's amazing is he still invites us to come, you know what I mean? He still invites us to be with him and sit at his feet. So that that just brings me so much comfort and hope all the all the days, every day.

SPEAKER_00 15:42

Yes, yeah. In Luke 1042, we have the capstone of this whole passage where Jesus says to Martha, only one thing is necessary, for Mary has chosen the good part, which shall not be taken away from her. And you make a point in your book that Martha was changed after this interaction with Jesus at her home. And so can you explain what later happens in John 12 and what we learn about that, about Martha, about the change in her life?

SPEAKER_01 16:12

Yeah, so about it about a year later, the last Passover, there's another dinner in John 12 that is written about. And it's it's a very short what they what it says about, what John says about her, anyways, is pretty short, but it's it's kind of telling because they so they're you know, they're at at the house in Bethany with Lazarus and Mary and all of that, and Martha is serving at this at this dinner, and and that's all it says. It doesn't say that Martha has got an attitude, you know. I mean, she's she is contentedly serving. So I think that Martha, just through kind of comparing the two narratives, I think she was taken aback when she was tenderly rebuked by the Lord, but I think she took it to heart, and I think she understood the priority of the moment. And I think in this John narrative, she's just serving with a heart that desires to worship the Lord with the right heart motive. And I I think there's just an adjustment there, and and it's just interesting. I mean, it doesn't say much, but she is definitely serving, but she's serving, she's she's just serving, you know. I mean, it's it's pretty cool. I she's just ministering. I'm just looking at the the Greek word, she's just ministering to the Lord, she's just waiting upon him and to the other people that are there. She's just caring. She would have been working really hard, I would imagine. And but yet she's just content. So it tells me there is just a contented rest going on there that she had learned what Jesus was teaching her from before. And you know, we have there's a whole year in between. So we we know there's probably lots of dinners that had happened in between, I'm sure. Lots of time, but we don't know exactly the extent of that. But here we just see her, yeah, perfectly content to love Jesus through her serving.

SPEAKER_00 18:11

If you want to grow as a whole life worshiper, my new book, All of Me, Pursuing a Life Fully Devoted to God, was written especially for you. It's available through major booksellers and the link in the show notes. So then in your chapter on Mary and Martha, you draw out three truths that help us to put our distractions in their place. And I'd like us to just touch on these as we summarize some of the things that we've talked about today. So I saw that first sentence that you gave here as a sentence of priority, a statement about what is to be the priority in our lives. And you say worship of God must remain the central focus of our lives as disciples of Christ. So, to summarize, how can we maintain the worship of God in our busy lives?

SPEAKER_01 19:03

I could probably answer that similarly to what I said before, but I really think that one of the first things we need to remember is that worship is fundamentally the posture of the heart before the Lord. You know, using Luke 10 as that example, Mary just sat at Jesus' feet because she understood who he was. And I think we just worship begins again when we realize who we're worshiping, that Christ is becoming, or that Christ becomes very weighty to us. And so I think we need to truly embrace, firstly, you know, just the greatness of the one that we are serving. The problem is not that we're always doing sinful things or anything like that. It's kind of more about, you know, Martha was serving, and like I said, the service itself is good. The issue, though, is that activity actually pulling yourself away from the attentiveness to uh from attentiveness to Christ Himself. And so it just brings up in my mind immediately John 15, 4, that we are to abide in Christ as he is in us. The branch cannot bear fruit from itself unless it abides in the vine, and Jesus being the vine, of course. So just remaining in Christ, that that that's important. Understanding you're united in Christ and that you have the privilege and the capacity to worship him through your lives, like serving, but not apart from him, you know. So we're not trying to try harder to fit God in to an already, you know, crowded schedule for most of us, but it's it's more about intentionally cultivating communion with him through being in the word, prayer, ongoing meditation, just in the ordinary day-to-day life. You know, I just think worship grows where Christ is regularly contemplated. And if you're not in the word, you're not really contemplating Christ, you're probably pulling from the culture, right? And so that's kind of how I would answer that. Just start with contemplating who Christ is. Who are you worshiping?

SPEAKER_00 21:10

You know, who is He? Yeah. The next truth you pulled out from this story, I really see it as a statement about motive. You say service should overflow from a heart of worship and not replace it. So, how does a heart of worship feed our service to God, our living for him? I know you've probably that's what you've been talking about, but any other thoughts on that? How does a heart of worship feed our service to God?

SPEAKER_01 21:38

True Christian worship or the fruit that comes from a heart that's devoted to the Lord. I I never really see that as functionally, as functioning independently from my delight in Christ. I I think it starts with delighting in the Lord, and from that you get true Christian service. And so the worship itself that that design Desire, that delight, that kind of fuels all the things that we do, you know, endurance or humility or things like that, or just even joy and serving. And again, you know, where I'm definitely not advocating if I connect it back to Luke 10, that that the problem was service. I mean, we know that that's not the problem. That's a beautiful thing to do. That's a necessary thing at times. But the danger is always going to be when our service to Christ and to others becomes disconnected from our adoration of Christ. Because when that happens, and I've done seen it in my own life for sure, ministry actually becomes burdensome, right? Right. Um, you know, self-focused, if you will. And you you can just go, you can get anxious and it's it can go in so many directions. But I was thinking about Colossians 3 and how scripture calls us to serve the Lord heartily, 323. But that that kind of joyful service can only come from a heart that's captivated by Christ. And I what I mean by that is we're thinking about his holiness, his mercy, his patience, his sacrificial love. And I think when we're overwhelmed by who he is and what he's done for us, of course, the ultimate sacrifice of dying on the cross for our sin, you know, when he's the one that lived the perfect life, not me, then your service becomes an expression of gratitude rather than maybe, I don't know, just a means of looking good in the world, kind of a thing. So, you know, ministry, I guess, is not about building your own kingdom or earning approval. It's it's it's about reflecting Christ. And I think that's what Paul means when he says we're to work heartily as for the Lord and not for men. So worship most deeply feeds our service to God when we remain aware that we ourselves are first recipients of grace. You know, I didn't deserve this salvation that God so graciously has bestowed upon me. I didn't deserve it at all. Still don't deserve it. But God in his kindness is the one that moved us next door to that neighbor who shared the gospel with us. And I need to be amazed by that. That that shouldn't be ever become old hat or whatever. You know, just that the mercy, the the mercy there is just incredible. Receiving something I just absolutely don't deserve. And that makes me joyful and humble and faithful to serve others, just contemplating that alone. That that helps to feed my soul and to worship, you know, in a in a right way to the Lord through my service.

SPEAKER_00 24:42

All that you just said reminds me of Romans 12, 1 again, where it says, by the mercies of God, present your body as a living sacrifice. It's because of God's mercies. All that we see there in Romans 1 through 11, that's what then feeds us walking with the Lord, living for Him, offering ourselves to Him as a living sacrifice. It's all mercy, it's all grace and mercy. Well, you have one final statement that you make, and that is what I see as a statement of warning, actually. You say we must guard against distractions that subtly pull us away from Christ. And so when we are subtly pulled away from Christ, and sometimes that happens, what do we need to remember about our good Savior and His gospel?

SPEAKER_01 25:30

I guess firstly, it's so easy to be distracted. I I think that we need to understand that. I don't think we're beyond being distracted, and I think that we have to, like Proverbs says, we have to guard our hearts with all diligence, for from it flow the wellsprings of life for sure. And, you know, it's Jesus again, he he is not milked toast, obviously. Jesus did correct Martha, and that was appropriately an appropriate correction. It was the right thing to do, obviously, and and he did that out of care for her. But I think that if we really are distracted and we are just losing focus, we we need to, it's like the pause principle. We need to immediately just go before the Lord and pray and just ask him to help us. And like I said before, he understands us more deeply than anybody knows us. And sometimes you just get caught up, you know, but we are able to go before the Lord and with confidence, even. I mean, Hebrews 4 says we can go with confidence because we're in Christ and we can find grace and mercy in our time of need. So we don't have to lose heart. Sometimes people, when they get caught up, distracted, they realize they're not doing right, they feel like they can't go to the Lord, but that's not what the scriptures teach. We are able to go to him with confidence because of what he's done on the cross, and he is sympathetic to our needs, and we can find help in that sense. And that's that's just very, very comforting. You know, so I think it's just important for us to remember that again, when our hearts are distracted, when they're adrift, when things are going on like that, you know, that we have the right view of Christ, and we don't think that we can't, that we have to be all cleaned up before we go to him. We are called to go. We can confess our sin, if that's the issue, and he is faithful and just to forgive us of our sin. And, you know, there there are new mercies every day, right? Lamentations. We we don't have to be stuck in a rut. He he definitely lovingly calls us back to himself. And so, again, you know, the ultimate answer is is just seeing Lord, seeing the Lord more clearly through scripture. And yeah, just just spending time with him. I the communion with Christ is such a huge piece for me. I know that we we can always grow in that area. I don't do it enough, right? And I want to, I want to learn to love my savior more and spend more time with him if I can. You know, but the world this the problem with these days, honestly, is I just think that there's a lot of there's a lot of things in our life that are vying for our attention, and it doesn't help when you've got the social media aspect compounded. You know, it's not like when I was a kid, I didn't have distractions. Obviously, Martha had distractions. We are always going to have distractions, but it even seems more piled on these days because there's a um the phone is a big distraction because it just vis for your attention. And so just not allowing that to be the primary thing. I was talking to my students the other day, and we were talking about how important it is when we go before the Lord in the morning and spend time in his word, not taking the phone with you, because you're just so tempted, right? To just get absorbed. So that would just be one example. That's not the only thing that distracts us, but it just seems like that's a big distraction for quite a few of us, right? Yeah. But even in that, you know, you again, Jesus is gracious and he's kind and he wants you to spend time with him. He invites you to do that. He's not cold and distant. Um that's a wrong view. Jesus is very much involved. He's even interceding for you right now. I mean, his ministry, just think about what he's doing for believers right now. It's pretty extraordinary. So right view, spending right time, having a right awareness of who he is, spending time in prayer, thinking rightly, renewing your mind in the scriptures, practicing those things.

SPEAKER_00 29:36

Right. Yeah. Well, well, I know our listeners are in different seasons, different circumstances. They have all different types of distractions. No two may be exactly the same. And so I really appreciate how you've encouraged us with eternal truth, and you have encouraged us to commune with Christ and really get down to the heart issues that apply no matter what season or circumstance we find ourselves in. And so, as we wrap things up, I'd like to read one more quote from your book that I found so encouraging, and it's this whether through active service or quiet devotion, true faithfulness finds its anchor in Christ. Earthly work will one day pass away, but time spent at his feet holds eternal significance. When our minds are set on things above where Christ is, our faith expresses itself through joyful obedience and Christ-like love. Spiritual joy does not rise and fall with circumstances, it flows from a heart grounded in worship and oriented toward God. Fruitful ministry, whether in the home, the church, or the world, begins with a heart fixed on God. So, Shelby, thank you so much for being with us today. And before you go, would you pray for our listeners? Absolutely. Thank you for asking.

SPEAKER_01 30:56

Father God, I just thank you so much for this wonderful podcast that Cheryl is hosting. I thank you for her heart and just the importance of worshiping you, Lord, worshiping you from the heart, loving you and worshiping you with our whole heart, mind, and soul. Thank you for these reminders. Thank you for your word that gives us everything we need for life and godliness, for Mary's example and even Martha's example of just serving and loving you through service or just sitting at your feet and allowing you to shepherd us through your word, Lord God. Um, so much that was said today. And I just would pray for the women who are listening to this podcast that they would just take some of these truths in and spend time with you, Lord, in your word, that their affections would just grow, that they would just desire to uh grow in their love and their affection for you, that they would desire to serve you with a heart that is just centered uh solely on you, Father. Lord God, we are just your disciples, and we want to follow you in ways that you call us to. We want to count the cost, we want to deny ourselves, we want to pick up the cross and just follow you wholeheartedly. So just teach us to do that each day. Help us to especially die to self and to walk in a way that honors you. We love you, and I just pray that you'll bless Cheryl today and bless the many women that are listening. Lord God, that you would get all the glory for all that we've said today. And we pray these things in your name. Amen.

SPEAKER_00 32:38

Thank you for listening to this episode. I invite you to please review, subscribe, and share, and keep pursuing a life wholly devoted to God, without compromise, without comparison in every circumstance. This is Whole Life Worship.