by Carol Ellison
“And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.” Mark 12:30.
I have to be honest with you: this whole devotion started with me doing exactly what many of us do this time of year. I pulled out a piece of paper and tried to map my life as a neat little pie chart. I labeled the slices: Work, Kids, Husband, Home, Friends, and, of course, "God Time." My goal was to "do better." I thought if I could just manage the slices perfectly—I would finally achieve "balance."
But the more I stared at that segmented pie, the clearer it became: this model was a trap. It made Jesus just one priority among many, competing for my time and energy. In a moment of frustration and clarity, I finally just took a marker and wrote the name "JESUS" right over the entire pie chart.
That's when it hit me: The goal is not balance. The goal is saturation.
Jesus isn't looking for a slice. He wants to be the apple filling—He wants to be the flavor in every bite—that steady, sweet presence that makes its way into every single part of your day.
Mark 12:30 is a call to total saturation—loving God with all of our heart, soul, mind, and strength. This command leaves no room for compartmentalization. When we love God with all these things, we are inviting Christ to infiltrate and transform our life, not just occupy a corner of it.
The enemy knows he can't always steal our faith, so he settles for stealing our focus. He is content to let us give God a "good slice" on Sunday morning, so long as he keeps our minds fractured with worry and our strength depleted by saying "yes" to every commitment during the week. He wants us to live in the exhaustion of separation.
Have you ever wondered why God demands the "all" of us? It's not because He is greedy; it’s because He is good. This sweet surrender is not a burden; it is the path to genuine freedom and joy—a welcome relief from the exhaustion of trying to "balance" everything ourselves.
This year, let's stop the exhausting work of trying to be a "perfectly balanced" woman and instead become saturated women. When Jesus is the apple filling, the "sweetness" isn't reserved just for our Sunday mornings; it flows into our Monday deadlines, our Tuesday chores and our Wednesday worries. When we choose saturation over separation we stop trying to "fit God in" and start letting Him "flow through."
Call to action: Which 'slice' of your life have you been trying to manage all on your own? How can you let His sweetness seep into that specific area today?
Lord, I’ve spent so much time trying to keep the different parts of my life from touching, afraid that if I didn't balance them perfectly, it would all fall apart. But I see now that You aren't a category to be managed—You are the amazing, overflowing life that gives every part of my day its meaning.
I trade my neat pie chart today for a life of sweet saturation. Let Your Spirit soak into the dry places of my schedule and the tired corners of my heart. I invite You to be the filling in every crack and crevice—the grace in my deadlines, the peace in my parenting, and the joy in my mundane chores. May the sweetness of Your presence be the thing people taste when they talk to me today. I’m stopping the struggle to keep everything in its place and simply resting in the fact that You are in every place.
In Jesus’ name, Amen
Hey there! My name is Carol. I’m a wife, mama, friend and lover of life. I love finding joy in simple things: coffee, sunshine and all things chocolate. Getting my hands in fresh dirt and planting flowers is one of my favorite pastimes as well as any time surrounded by my children. I've found personal healing and steadfast hope in the pages of Scripture. I have a great desire for women to truly experience the love of God. A favorite bible verse of mine is Ephesians 3:19-20 "and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God. Now to Him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to His power that is at work within us"