[Pearls Ep 128: Monday Motivation]
We’re continuing with the story of Martha and Mary. And it includes this priceless exchange: “Martha, burdened with much serving, came to him and said, ‘Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me by myself to do the serving? Tell her to help me.’”
Mind you, elsewhere Martha acknowledges that Jesus is the “Messiah, the Son of God” (John 11:27). Does that stop her from bossing the Messiah around? Of course not – “Tell her to help me.” Not only that, but Martha leads in with this passive-aggressive gem, “do you not care that my sister has left me by myself…”
What kind of person tries to boss the Messiah around? What kind of person would dare to insinuate the Messiah doesn’t care about our situation?
Don’t get me wrong – there are times when I’ve had to set God straight about things. There was that time when He was way too slow answering my prayers. And, frankly, it seemed like He really wasn’t even that concerned with the laundry list of demands, stipulations, and preferred outcomes I carefully delineated for Him.
But that’s different.
Why?
Well, because it was me.
Martha is clearly being unreasonable. I was just providing God with constructive feedback.
Anywho… what should Martha, perhaps, have done differently? Here are 4 options:
- Did Martha really need to be doing what she was doing? Maybe yes, maybe no. There’s nothing wrong with making a nice, home-cooked meal for Jesus. But maybe she was over doing it? Many times we place demands and expectations on ourselves that don’t need to be there. Here are some from my hit parade – “I have to put in extra time at work to get that promotion” … “I have to get this done around the house to keep it up to snuff” … and so on. The aren’t bad choices in themselves, and your mileage may vary, but we all have our things, and any self-imposed demands on our time and attention that get in the way of our relationship with God (especially in daily meditation) and quality time with the people in our life, need to be re-prioritized.
- What about those tedious realities of life that absolutely do have to get done? Well, we can choose to unite that work to Jesus. He certainly knew what it was like to put in a hard day’s work.
- Here’s a biggee for Martha and many of us – we need to let go of the outcome. Jesus told Martha that she was “worried and anxious” – why? Probably because she had certain expectations of how things should be going and how they should turn out. It wasn’t enough for her to just do her part as best she could; she was determined that all the other people, activities and outcomes should meet her expectations.
- And here’s another biggee for Martha and most of us – falling into the trap of comparing ourselves to others. Relative positioning is one of the great spiritual traps of our age. “Why don’t they have work as hard as me?” … “Why do they have it so easy?” … “God, aren’t you keeping track of all this?”
On Thursday we reminded ourselves that this passage, like all the Gospel, is Good News. Why? Jesus again gives us the answer – because we get to choose.
In this occasion, Martha did not choose as well as Mary. But she still got to choose. As we all do. We are in the driver’s seat. We can choose how we act in any given situation. More to the point – we can choose our interior disposition. We can choose resentment, or we can choose contentedness. We can choose envy or good will. We can choose control or detachment. We can choose going down the path of turning to self or going down the path of turning to Christ. And when we choose turning to Christ we choose hearing “my burden is easy” and “I have loved you with an everlasting love” and “I have plans for your success.”
In the week ahead we are certain to have countless opportunities to practice choosing the better part.
Blessings on your journey with Christ –
Steve
Steve and Karen Smith – Interior Life