“As a deer longs for flowing streams, so I long for you, God. I thirst for God, the living God.” 

Psalm 42:1-2a

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In Luke 10: 38-42 we read the story of Jesus and His disciples being invited into the home of Martha and Mary. Martha clearly had the gift of hospitality and the means if she just invited 13 more people in for dinner! She has a decent size crowd, so understandably she is going to be busy.  Martha is moving and shaking and looks over to see Mary, her sister, sitting at the feet of Jesus listening to Him teach!  During this time, women were not permitted to sit under teachings by the rabbis in school.  What Mary was doing was not a “normal” occurrence for women. The word for listening means to “hear with attention”.  So, Mary is fully engaged with Jesus and every word that He is speaking.

But Martha (vs. 40) was “distracted with all her preparations”. The King James says she, “was cumbered about much serving.”  In the Greek this means being over-occupied about a thing!  Martha wasn’t just being hospitable, she was going overboard. Doing more than she needed to. Jesus tells Martha that she is anxious and bothered about many things that are not important or necessary.  Had she not been doing all the extra things she also would have had time to sit at His feet.

I love this story.  It draws me back to what is most important every time I get distracted.  We may not be distracted with preparing a meal for a large group of people, but there are so many distractions in our lives today.  We have difficulty finding time to sit at the feet of Jesus and to soak in His Word, yet, we find time for Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, losing hours of time scrolling on Pinterest, Amazon, E-bay, you name it.  Of course, there’s still TV, emails, and the list can go on and on.  How much different would our lives be if we just took 30 minutes of this time and spent it with God?  What extra things do we do that are not necessary? Our homes can be Pinterest perfect, but God is not looking at our homes, He is looking at our hearts.  He is more concerned that we seek Him every day instead of liking someone’s post.

We are like Martha in that we can get distracted easily with things that really don’t matter.  Sadly, they seem so important to us.  We are also like Mary, though, because God created us to desire relationship with Him.  We will never be filled the way He desires for  us to be filled with anything other than Jesus. I challenge you to take some time today fully devoted to Jesus.  It may be hard at first…..even now some days are difficult. My thoughts are everywhere except where they need to be.  I do believe with all of my heart, the more we are faithful to show up, God’s Word will come alive to us! We were created to desire relationship, and the ultimate relationship is with our precious Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. He is waiting for you!

“Your Word, Lord, is a lamp for my feet and light on my path.” Psalm 119:105