Only One Thing

Planning and executing those plans is time consuming and thought consuming. It is worthy of our attention, and when God calls us to do things for Him we should do them to the utmost of our ability. We should to all things to glorify Him, to bring Him praise.

However, I have been thinking about the story of Mary and Martha, and their different attitudes when Jesus came to visit them. Martha was so pleased to see Jesus that she immediately went to work preparing a special meal. When Mary's response was to sit with Jesus, not to help Martha with her preparations, Martha was resentful. When she addressed her resentment with Jesus and asked him to support her and to tell Mary to help her, Jesus told her that it was Mary who had made the wiser choice. He said that only one thing was needed, and He would not take it away from Mary simply so she could help her sister.

As someone who likes to plan and then execute the plan, especially when it comes to things like hospitality, this story of Martha hits home. The last few weeks have been filled with welcome events for the new grad students on campus and in our ministry, and in my excitement and desire to make them feel welcome it would be so easy to continue to plan and execute events without actually taking the time to sit down and just be with them. It's easy to do this in our faith, too. When quiet time with the Lord or our time in fellowship with others or going to church become things we check off our to do list and not things that we invest our attention and intentions in, we risk developing the same attitude as Martha. We risk seeing others around us who have chosen rightly and resenting them for doing things differently. We risk losing sight of the one thing that we need.

Do you tend to be like Martha or Mary?

Today's Verse
Luke 10: 41-42
"Martha, Martha," the Lord answered, "you are worried and upset about many things, but few things are needed - or indeed only one. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her."