One Thing
“There are, if I’ve counted correctly, at least 14 instances in our English Bibles (ESV) when the phrase ‘one thing’ is used.”
That was the sentence that opened my devotional at our pastoral team meeting this week. I then asked our pastors if they could name the top three places where the phrase shows up. You can find “one thing” fourteen times, but three verses stand out above the others. These are watershed verses that are worth remembering and returning to again and again.
Now I had, by that criterion, written down three verses in my notes — Psalm 27:4; Luke 10:42; Philippians 3:13 — but I wondered if they’d come to mind for others. “Name the three?” I asked.
Without hesitation, one pastor said: “One thing have I asked of the Lord — Psalm 27!”
That was my first.
“One thing have I asked of the Lord, that will I seek after: that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord and to inquire in his temple.”
Another pastor immediately said: “One thing is necessary, Martha!”
That was my second.
“... the Lord answered her, ‘Martha, Martha, you are anxious and troubled about many things, but one thing is necessary. Mary has chosen the good portion, which will not be taken away from her.’”
Seamlessly, the next pastor said: “I do not consider that I have made it my own, but one thing I do!”
That was my third.
“Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.”
And just like that, in canonical order, we found ourselves standing firm in one spirit, with one mind — it was a sweet moment, a gift.
One thing.
To know God, to be with him, to seek him above all else — that is the heart of the one thing in all three verses, and it comes back to Paul’s all-consuming passion.
I’m not sure how the Book of Philippians is landing on you. It’s a book about joy, and that’ll get clear, but the beginning of the book is challenging. It’s challenging because, before we can understand true joy, we have to see our hearts. We have to get down to the primary allegiances and deepest affections — what is our real, operating “one thing”? What are we most committed to? What is our passion?
We have room to grow here, church, and we can grow. At one level, I understand how Paul’s example can seem out of reach to us. “Paul was Paul — we have less time than he did, and more kids,” your self-talk might say. But I hope we can push through all such thinking. I hope that, God willing, he might revive in our hearts the possibility of greater passion for him. It is possible that we each become more enthralled by God than we currently are. We can have more of him. To know him more. To rest in him more. To love him more.
And of course we can’t get to real joy apart from this.
