Now as they went on their way, Jesus entered a village. And a woman named Martha welcomed him into her house. And she had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord's feet and listened to his teaching. But Martha was distracted with much serving. And she went up to him and said, “Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to serve alone? Tell her then to help me.” But the Lord answered her, “Martha, Martha, you are anxious and troubled about many things, but one thing is necessary. Mary has chosen the good portion, which will not be taken away from her.”An overwhelming thing I keep hearing from people these days is about their overwhelming busyness. Unable to commit to anything, because their life is so busy, unable to help with even minor ministry tasks, let alone coming onto a ministry team, or just not even able to consistently attend services or prayer meetings.
Luke 10:38-42
I am aware the church asks a lot of people, I look at my week and see how many night I am out doing different ministry groups or events, and I think it's a little overwhelming, and people who aren't in ministry full time would probably find it even more insane. However, I'm not talking about the church making people too busy, but people making themselves too busy to the point that they neglect their relationship with Jesus... that they don't take time to sit and listen to Jesus... and that is what drives the lack of commitment we are seeing in our churches today.
Running around with things we think are important... and a lot of those things being almost worthless - there is worth in things like social media for friendship connections, entertainment for rest and relaxation, and work for financial stability, but when they become over emphasised and make us too busy for other more important things they create a worthlessness as they overshadow the Gospel.
Just as Jesus tells Martha that her running around is making her anxious, but there is one thing that is necessary... He wants to tell us the same thing. There is one thing that is necessary, and that is sitting at Jesus' feet and hearing from Him. That might be in a church service, a prayer meeting, a personal devotion time... but whatever it is, it needs to be prioritised, and it needs to be consistent. If it is prioritised then everything else will fall into place.
The very solution for our busyness is not to try and time manage and cut things from our schedule, but it is to cut everything but sitting at Jesus' feet and then seeing what He says should be our priority. I truly believe that if we do that He'll guide us into more Gospel ministries, even around our commitments and we won't feel busy or over pressured about it.
Because we start sitting at His feet.
