To will one thing...

It was Sören Kierkegaard who wrote the book Purity of Heart Is to Will One Thing. I've always believed that. My prayer has been, "God, give me an undivided heart..." But in the past year or two I have become overwhelmed with the need of the world. I know that the answer to the need is God's job. But I also see that as a follower of Jesus I have to be concerned about the things that He is concerned about. he told His folllowers that they were to "make disciples...teaching them to obey whatever I have commanded you." And what I currently see in the world is a list of about 200 things that I could give my life to as an expression of my desire to follow Jesus. But I don't have that much life to give. Sometimes I long for the blessed days of ignorance when I didn't know about the amount of spousal abuse in Canada, that 50,000 people die every day of starvation, that genocide is a fact of life for many people in Africa, that the mentally ill have feelings just like the rest of us.

How do I be faithful to Jesus in the midst of all of this? How do I sit at His feet like Mary instead of running off to save the world like Martha? And how do I keep from becoming an apathetic follower and disguising it as "waiting on the Lord"? How does it all fit together?

I want to "will one thing" - love for Jesus. But the expression of that love seems to pull me in so many directions. Anybody else share this struggle? I'd love to hear what your thoughts are.