It will never cease to amaze me how God’s Word can speak a fresh word each & every time!! Like tonight….
I read the familiar story of Mary & Martha. Jesus comes to their home. Martha, “Miss Hospitality”, opens her home to Him, invites Him in & then begins to prepare what had to be the meal of the century. Scripture tells us that she “was distracted by all the preparations that had to be made.” (Luke 10:40a). Before I go getting too hard on her, I can well remember how much I had to think about getting Christmas dinner together – the planning, making the shopping list, going to the grocery store, the preparations, the cooking, the baking – it all adds up to one thing, stress. And Martha was feeling it. She even complains to Jesus about her sister, Mary, who just sits around at Jesus’ feet, hanging onto every word that He speaks. “Lord, don’t you care that my sister has left me to do the work by myself? Tell her to help me!” (Luke 10:40b).
Jesus’ response?
“Martha, Martha,” the Lord answered, “you are worried and upset about many things, but only one thing is needed. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her.” (Luke 10: 41-42 NIV).
Martha Kilpatrick describes these two women & is quoted in “Satisfy My Thirsty Soul” by Linda Dillow:
Jesus stopped at Bethany one day & Martha bustled to fix His lunch & make Him comfortable. She chose to relate to His humanity….Martha would feed Him. Mary stilled herself in homage before Him. She chose to relate to His divinity…..Mary would feed on Him. (from page 54 of above mentioned book).
How interesting is that! Martha chose one thing. Her sister, Mary chose another.
And so it is with us…..we each have a choice.
We can either serve Him out of duty. We choose His humanity. Or we can choose His divinity, to be devoted to Him out of delight. And the choice is solely ours.
From that same book, Martha Kilpatrick is quoted:
Time is the treasure of life. Time IS life.
Time is the willing sacrifice that you offer up to the worship of what you love.
Don’t tell me what you love. Tell me where you spend your TIME and I’ll tell you what you love. (page 55 of the above mentioned book).
Choice: “to select from a number of possibilities.” (according to dictionary.com)
We have so many choices every day as to how we will spend our time, what we will do with our time, when we will do it. Those choices call to us every day, all day.
                                     May I choose to feed ON Him.
