Note: The writer is a young adult who is currently juggling between completing her thesis, helping others and walking right with God.

I’ve been working on a project for quite some time. While some of my colleagues have successfully completed theirs and embarking on new projects, I feel frustrated that I am still stuck with mine. I wondered what wasn’t working on my side. As I reflected back, I am confident that I was not slacking either the working hours or the amount of work done. I knew I had been working very hard – toiling day and night for it. But why am I still not achieving my goal?

One evening, exhausted from staring at the computer screen for what seemed like hours, I decided I need a break and switched off all the lights in the office to take a short nap. In the comforting dimness, swimming in the realm of reality and dream – I had an ‘enlightenment’.

There and then, it occurred to me why I took so long to complete a task that my colleagues take only half as long. I realized that I have been doing too many side jobs, things not directly related to my project. I recalled how during the beginning stages of the project, there were many small but important tasks that needed my attention. Top that up with some colleagues asking me to assist them in certain ‘urgent’ matters. Many times, I was more than willing to be helpful – after all, I wanted to portray the right image of a good Christian. Although some of my caring friends urged me to reject certain pleas and focus on the project, I find myself unable to decline my colleagues’ requests. I had no idea why. Sometimes I hate myself for being so ‘nice’ but I cannot help it.

Slowly, I began to realize that I wanted to shut out the nagging voices inside me which kept pestering me to finish the little things – all those small but ‘urgent’ tasks – before I am able to fully focus on the big thing which is my project. I thought that if I could just finish those little things, the voices would stop and I would finally have peace in doing my project undisturbed. How wrong I was! It dawned on me that no matter how many of these little voices I tried to attend to, more just seemed to come. Not only that, because I was so efficiently helping other people (at the expense of my own project), words got around and more colleagues seemed to want me in their team. As the deadline of my project drew near, I finally realized that these small little helps I have been offering had indirectly slowed down my production rate. Worse, it may be a potential threat to my completing the project.

And so I took a different approach. As I began to spend more time with my project, I found out that it was easier for me to discern and differentiate between the extra tasks that I needed to entertain and the ones that I don’t. The guilt of declining to “help” others was still there – but it did not affect me as much as it used to be. The more I pondered upon the situation, the more I see how similar it is to our spiritual life, especially when it comes to our devotion time.

We wonder why other people seemed to be flourishing in their walk with God even though we spend the same amount of diligence and time as they did. We cannot understand why they testify to so many answered prayers while our record shows a meager few. We start to question if God has overlooked us. Perhaps then it’s time to start asking ourselves if we have let the little voices – or rather, noises – hinder our walk with God. Have we been spending our devotion time worrying about things undone instead of focusing solely on the one priority that tops our list? Maybe we should start saying ‘no’ to those non-stop nagging pleas of ‘urgent’ matters and be firm on finishing the one thing that really matters – the quality of our prayers which defines our walk with God. That should be the most important ‘project’ that we should help ourselves with before helping others.