1FaithfulWarrior – Brilliantly Bold

There is a passage in the Bible (Luke 10:39-42) about two sisters – Martha and Mary. To paraphrase, the story goes a little something  like this…

Jesus comes into a town called Bethany. He goes to Martha’s house and she basically spazzes out like most of us do when someone important is coming over. She is so concerned about impressing Jesus that she is feverishly cooking, cleaning, preparing etc. in order to make her home ready for her important guest. Jesus is at her house and Martha is too busy doing all of those things that “had” to be done (in her mind…so that she could perhaps impress Jesus) while THE MOST IMPORTANT action that should have been done was completely ignored. Spending time and giving her attention to Jesus.

Her sister, Mary, got it. She didn’t care about the preparations. She didn’t give a darn what anyone else thought. She had Jesus in front of her, and she gave Him her full attention.

Martha got aggravated with her sister for not helping her prepare and makes a snarky remark to Jesus about her. He shuts her down and basically tells her that she is unnecessarily worried and upset about things that really just don’t matter. Mary figured out what was actually important and it was spending time with Him…listening to His words…His teachings.

Martha was soooo worried, anxious and distracted, that she missed the opportunity to show true hospitality to her guest – and that was to spend undistracted time with Him.

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Then the story just ends and we don’t get to know if Martha “figured it out” or not. I hope that she did!

That got me thinking this morning…am I a Martha or a Mary? Who are you?

We live in a world where it seems like EVERYTHING whirls around us at 1000 mph. We are distracted when we should be still. We are anxious when we should not worry.  We feel like we have to work 80 hours a week so that we can provide everything for our children. In reality though, your family and your children just want to spend time with you.

We all need to learn from Mary. We need to pause long enough to discover that even though we have the most honorable intentions with our busyness, true meaning comes to us when we slow down. Spend time with God. Sit at the feet of Jesus and listen to His words. Don’t worry about all of that other crap.

Take time to communicate with God during your day. He will show you when you are being too much of a Martha.