What Mary Saw

We all know the story about Mary and Martha. How Jesus came to visit and Martha busied herself in the kitchen preparing the meal alone and how she complained to Jesus that Mary needed to come help already.
I always identified with Mary in a way because I am pretty bad at housework and I like to avoid it as much as possible but I also identified with Martha's frustration over the lack of help because when I do clean my house really well it is usually only me doing the hard work and then an hour later it is messy again.

However there is one thing about the story that we sometimes overlook. This is not a story about who doesn't do work in the kitchen and who doesn't.

Mary wasn't just shirking her responsibilities she was sitting with Jesus. What did she see? I don't think she would be the kind of person to purposefully avoid helping her sister in the kitchen to prepare the food.

Martha complains to Jesus telling Him to talk to Mary and tell her to help. What Jesus says to her is interesting Luke 10: 42 “My dear Martha, you are worried and upset over all these details! 42 There is only one thing worth being concerned about. Mary has discovered it, and it will not be taken away from her.”

I found over the last few years I have been very busy and rushed and attending to all the details. Even my prayers were rushed or were take away meals with Jesus. Come dine with me Jesus while I attend to this thing or that thing. I was so busy fixing this and fixing that in my own life that I forgot that the only thing I was meant to be fixing is my eyes on Jesus.

I felt guilty for not reading my Bible and praying for hours. I was upset that God felt so far away from me. I didn't only want to read my Bible because others were doing it and it was expected of me I wanted to want to read it. I wanted to worship out of a place of relationship and not from trying to be something.

My busyness was mainly a way to smother the difficult and hurtful things in my life. If I only kept myself busy I wouldn't feel so bad. If I keep busy enough maybe the grief won't kill me. If I were to fully express what I was going through I didn't think I was going to recover.

I wonder what would have happened if Martha had stopped what she was doing and sat next to Mary to listen to Jesus.

What would happen if I did that?

Well I did. This year I stepped away from the things I was using to hide my troubled soul. I had reached a point where there was a lot of confusion and torment in my mind and in my soul. My soul had become starving and was trying to fill itself with doing things that kept me busy. Only these things I knew were not what God would really have me do. Now don't get me wrong I learned a lot over the last few years. God used my bad decisions and motives and turned them for good.

As I stepped away and looked closer at my motivations and my decisions, God began to peel away the hard layers of my heart. These layers of hurt, grief, fear and shame. There may still be some left for God to fix but I feel softer. The area is tender and I cry a lot easier now. I cry when I am happy now.

I sat at my Saviors feet look up into His face as Mary did all those years ago and this is what I saw, this is what Mary saw, we saw the Father's love. We saw the one thing to be concerned about about all other things. When you sit at His feet all other things pass away and become meaningless.

If you tune everything out and listen carefully, He speaks and when He speaks you will never be the same again for He speaks healing and peace into your very soul, into your very bones and into your heart. That my friends is entering into His Rest. Entering His rest is not something you do or try. It is when you become hungry for more than just a take-away meal and you hunger for a 5 course meal with Him and "just one last cup of coffee Jesus before I go about my day?"