Living a Martha Life with a Mary Heart

Luke 10:38-42 is one of my favorite passages of Scripture:

As Jesus and his disciples were on their way, he came to a village where a woman named Martha opened her home to him. She had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord's feet listening to what he said. But Martha was distracted by all the preparations that had to be made. She came to him and asked, "Lord, don't you care that my sister has left me to do the work by myself? Tell her to help me!"
"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."



I want to be like her:

Eyes closed. A smile playing on her lips. Ears picking up every word. Heart wide open as the sound of living water drowns out every other sound in the room. Every syllable soothes her soul. Every word she hears is a healing balm. Every breath she hears exhaled is the source of life. It is as if there is no one else in the room but her. Her heart leaps and tears begin to flow as she is swept away to a place where every one of her secrets is known. In this place, she is completely and amazingly loved to her very core. There is no fear here. There is no pain. There is no worry. There is nothing more important than being right here, right now. This is the most important place on earth. This is where she was designed to be.

This is Mary--sitting at the feet of Jesus. And I want to be like her. I want to be able to sit at the feet of my Lord and just bask in THE LIGHT. I want to be able to let everything in my life wait while I feed on the BREAD OF LIFE. I want to be able to just shut out every noise as I sit by and listen to the soul-soothing, rushing waters.

I want to be like Mary.

But I am more like Martha. Running around serving, when my soul desires to be served by the one who came to SERVE.

Cooking, cleaning, taking care of everyone and everything--loving it but feeling lonely and disconnected all at the same time. There is always another load of laundry
and another load of dishes. Always something to DO. Sometimes I just want to BE.

I am living a Martha life with a Mary heart.

The Storm

Late last night it started. First there was a flash off in the distance, followed by a rumble that sounded like an 18-wheeler traveling over a bridge overpass. As the night crept on, the flashes became brighter, the rumbles became more pronounced and then the clouds, so heavily burdened and full, released all that they had.

The combination of sounds was a little frightening. My room, with my bed right beside the window, was at times noisy and eerily quiet at the same time. The noise that was outside seemed to suck all of the noise from my room.

As the night wore on, this awesome display became bigger than any fourth of July fireworks show I had ever witnessed. The sound of the 18-wheelers became a caravan of "monster trucks"--the likes of which I have only seen in pictures-huge earth-moving vehicles with tires the size of houses. And on top of all that, the sounds of a million whispers and hisses filled the air.

This was no ordinary storm. This was a bone-shaking, teeth-rattling, house-moving, storm. And it seemed to go on forever.

As the lightning flashed and the thunder rolled across the dark sky and the rain pounded, I felt the size of an ant, but with a sense of security that seemed odd in the midst of such a display of awe-provoking power.

Only God can do this.


Psalm 77:17-18

17 The clouds poured down rain.
The skies rumbled with thunder.
Lightning flashed back and forth like arrows.
18 Your thunder was heard in the windstorm.
Your lightning lit up the world.
The earth trembled and shook.

Love from the Inside Out

As I've posted before--I am reading "The Shack" again.
This book makes me think really hard about all of the issues that I bring into my relationship with God.

My trust issues.
My independence issues.
My self-esteem issues.

All of my issues have molded themselves into a concrete-hard barrier that has been dragged, nailed, cemented, glued and sticky-taped into place, meaning that it is no small feat to get that stuff out of the way.

But God.

In Psalms 139 David declares that God knows him--inside and out and that there is no place that David can go that is unknown to God.

It is the same with all of us.I have learned (sometimes the hard way) that there is no place that I can go to hide from God. And if that is true (and it is )--and God knows me inside and out--then His love for me cannot be based on anything other Him--because I have issues. Trust issues, independence issues, self-esteem issues.

God's love has a way of getting around all of the issues in my life. Even though this barrier is tall, wide and deep---God's love has proven to be taller, wider and of more depth than my issues. He continues to love me despite all of the walls I have erected to keep myself "safe".

God's love is not based on me or my ability to be loving or even my desire to love--God's love for ME is solely based on HIM.

He is love. He cannot be anything less than love. So, when I open my heart to Him, my heart becomes saturated, enveloped, wrapped and swaddled in Him---perfect love. That is love from the inside out. And it is only this type of love that has the power to destroy the barriers that I have built.

This barrier, once so huge that I could not see over it or around it, has all been knocked down and now the pieces lay as stepping stones, a bridge, that leads to a deeper relationship with God.

Love from the inside out. Pretty cool.

The Shack and me

I am re-reading the book, "The Shack". It happens to be one of my favorites because it really makes me think a lot about my view of God. God is so much bigger than I can think or imagine. There are words we used to describe Him, but none of them can really express how truly awesome our God is or the love he has for us.

Over the next few days, as I read through this thought-provoking novel again, I will be doing some evaluating of myself, my view of God and how my view of Him affects my life and the way I treat the people in my life.

This should be interesting. Stay Tuned.