What we most need

Make a grocery list. Go to the shops. Prep youth. Prep Bible study for youth. Make a meal plan for next week. Call the municipality to find out how much we need to pay. Pay rates. Start work on the articles for Hannah’s Heart. Look into getting the floors done and a wall. Organize the stackers that were meant to be done monthly but haven’t been done since November. Investigate play schools for Peter. Think about work for me. Make plans to have people over for dinner. Touch base with a few different friends. Consider the biokineticist and dietitian. Exercise. Sort out the quiz for Sunday School. Feed and look after a 3 month old. Entertain an active 19 month old who doesn’t want to be out of my site. O and try to fit in a quiet time.

If you are anything like me, your life looks something like this. Long to do lists that almost never get completed. And all the jobs on the list are good jobs, the majority of them may even be ministry related, but they are still jobs. And at the end we tack on a quiet time, if we can. Somehow we seem to never get round to it because there are so many other things going on. That is what happens in my life.

I am Martha incarnate. Jesus came to Martha’s house and her sister sat at His feet and listened to what He said. Martha on the other hand, was distracted by all the preparations that had to be made. She wanted to listen and be part of it all but she was pulled away by the jobs that had to be done. I can understand that. When we have people over I make sure everything is cleaned, the toys all packed away and I try to have the food all cooked by the time the guests arrive. The more ‘important’ the people are who are coming, the more stressed I get that everything must be in order. Now poor Martha, here comes Jesus and His disciples to her home, no wonder she is busy trying to get things prepared.

And her sister is just sitting there. I would be mad too. So she approaches Jesus and tells Him to tell Mary off, to get her to work. Instead Jesus tells her that she is worried about too many things and that few things are needed; indeed only one. Mary chose what was better and it wouldn’t be taken away from her.

Now we often interpret that as Martha being told off, she is too busy and needs to calm down. This week I have been reading into this story and I like what R Kent Hughes has to say. He points out that what Martha was doing was good. It was good to be hospitable, to feed her guests. She was using her gift for God. She was doing what she thought Christ needed. The problem came in because she allowed the work that she was doing for God to distract her from the Word of God.

How often I am guilty of that! I work and work and work thinking that God needs my work. If I don’t then who will? When I stop to think of it, it’s a ludicrous thought. To think that God needs my work. God doesn’t need my work. He can accomplish His will without me. He chooses, by His grace to use me but He doesn’t need me. And all those jobs on my to do list don’t NEED to be done. I can get to them tomorrow or next week or next month. It’s ok if we spend youth just talking to the teens. It is ok if I take a meal out the freezer for supper or if the stackers are not done till next month.

It is NOT ok if I don’t get to the Word because I am too busy doing other things.

It’s ok to be busy and to be involved in lots of ministry in church. It’s ok to be busy getting things organized at home. Not just ok but good. It is good to be busy in the service of God (which includes raising a family and running a home). However, only one thing is needed – that I listen to the Word of God.

My prayer for myself and for you this weekend and coming week, is that we would not neglect the thing that we need most; that we would be active in service, yes but that we would first be in the Word.