One of my favorite short stories in the Bible is when Jesus and His disciples are going from town to town and they arrive at the house of Mary and Martha. Martha, in her hospitable way, opens the door to Jesus and invites Him and His friends in. But soon, worries of tidying up for her guests, preparing food, and other obligations of hosting a crowd get in the way of her actually spending time with Jesus. It’s Mary, her sister, we see that sits at Jesus’s feet listening and soaking up the words of a man she doesn’t realize will one day be her Savior. Only when Martha cries out for Mary to help her, do we get the chance to hear Jesus’ perspective of the situation. “Mary has chosen what is better,” He says.
How easily I can relate to Martha but how earnestly I desire to be Mary. Thanks to Martha’s hospitality, Jesus came into her home. But that was only the beginning of a deep, loving relationship that Jesus desired to have with these women that from birth both bore His image. Mary might have understood it but Martha had it all backwards. Before spending time with Jesus, she wanted to plan, prepare, fix, etc. But in doing so, she was easily worried and upset. Mary chose what was better. Instead of worrying about things that in a few hours would have no eternal significance, Mary went straight to a Man she would later call Lord, and sat at His feet as she listened to His heart. We don’t know if Mary was worried like Martha was when Jesus stepped in the house and began to teach. She was probably tempted to rush around like Martha, but after sitting at His feet and hearing His first few words, it seems like even if Mary had been preoccupied with other things, the words of Jesus drew her in enough to forget them and rest at His feet.
How often do we let the cares of today and tomorrow take away from our time with the Lord today? How often does our time in God’s Word and in prayer – listening to His heart and really getting to know His character – come second to our daily worries and obligations? In the past few years of working in ministry, I have noticed that it can tend to happen even more frequently in this area of work than anywhere else – the constant need to be serving, evangelizing, spending time with people, hosting, teaching, etc. These are all great things, but before I even have a chance to realize it, my time is so focused on doing that I barely have time for what my heart truly needs, to sit at the feet of my Savior and listen to His heart. If I’m going to truly live out the Great Commission, I have to stay plugged into my Source and daily choose what is better.
Like Paul says in Philippians 3:10, I want to know Christ. I want to be in awe of His beauty. I want His Word to penetrate to the depths of my heart. I want to say no to the secondary things and yes to the one and only thing that my heart truly needs. No, it won’t be easy and yes, it requires a daily sacrifice of time. But it stops becoming a sacrifice when we realize that knowing Christ is exactly what we were made for and gives our souls the rest that we can’t find in anything else. So I invite you just as I invite myself, let’s know Jesus. Let’s really seek Him out in His Word and in prayer because our souls will quickly find out that Jesus has been right all along – it will always be the better choice.
-Maggie Addison, GEM Missionary