February 11, 2009

Yes, I know it's two weeks late, but give me a break people ;) Let it serve to restore your personal time with the Lord.
-P.M.

Let's be grounded in the Word:
Luke 10:38-42
Ecclesiastes 3:1-13
Colossians 1:9-11
Galatians 5:22
1 Peter 5:6-8

OK, so start with the top scripture and we'll cover these in order.
Luke 10 is the story of Martha and Mary hosting dinner for Jesus and his disciples. Martha is furiously working and Mary is sitting listening to Jesus. How many of you have ever felt like Martha? You're doing all the work while someone else sits around and does nothing. Yeah, pretty much all of us have been in that situation. It's frustrating because you would really like to do nothing, but if you did nothing, nothing is exactly what would get done. Then you get irritated, and all these thoughts start racing through your head and festering.

As Martha focuses on Mary just sitting there, you can almost hear her thought process. "I can't believe she's sitting there falling all over Jesus while I do all the work! She's got some nerve! If she thinks she's getting out of all this work, she's got another thing coming!" Her anger starts to grow and grow until all of a sudden, she explodes. She probably interrupts Jesus in the middle of what he's trying to say and tries to get Jesus to make Mary help her.

But why did Jesus react the way He does? First of all, I'm pretty sure that Jesus is anti-slavery and Martha is definitely feeling like a slave right now. Secondly, God is just, right? Is it fair that Martha is doing all the work and Mary is sitting on her fat bum bum doing nothing? (OK, truthfully I cannot speak to the fatness or skinny-ness of Mart's bum bum, but this is the Mara-paraphrase.)

Here's what happened. Martha got so focused on the task at hand (making dinner) that she forgot what and who she was working for. You might say that Martha was mission focused. She got it in her head that she was going to serve the Lord by welcoming Him into her home and serving Him dinner. This was a great idea and one that I'm sure Jesus and the disciples appreciated since they'd been traveling. But what went wrong?

Martha had the right idea inviting Jesus in for a meal. But at some point she took her eyes off the fact that she was doing all this work for Jesus and got so focused on the task at hand that she forgot that the whole point was to serve Jesus. We know that because she practically yells at Jesus for not making Mary help her. Martha yelled at the guest of honor who was the purpose for her doing all this work. I would say someone needs to take a chill pill, and that someone is definitely Martha.

So the question is, was what Martha was doing bad or wrong? Read the verses in Ecclesiastes. I think the answer is no. Her heart was in the right place. She wanted to serve Jesus, but there is a time for everything. There's a time to work for God, and a time to sit at His feet and worship.
As people who are trying desperately to "live the mission", this is something we need to be careful about. We need to keep this balance between working for God and spending time with Him. We can't be "so heavenly minded that we're no earthly good." But we also can't forget the reason we labor, that in the end, it's all for the glory of God. And that's a beautiful and worthy cause. So how can we tell if we're striking the right balance?

Read the passages from Galatians and Colossians. The proof is in the pudding. Or maybe the jello since fruit in pudding sounds gross. The proof is in our fruit! Is your mission, is what you're doing for God bearing good fruit? Martha's mission (a.k.a. making dinner for Jesus) wasn't producing good fruit. It was producing bitterness and frustration. If you didn't read those passages or didn't catch it, bitterness and frustration are not a fruit of the spirit. If this is the kind of fruit that your mission is producing, then it's time to spend some time with Jesus, just you and Him.

When I was in college, I worked three jobs, part-time, went to school full time and in my "free-time" I was in leadership for 3 Christian organizations. I also spent a semester student teaching, which is stressful enough by itself. Needless to say, it was exhausting. I remember waking up early one Saturday morning (which of course is against the college student handbook rules for Saturdays) because I had a to-do list the length of my car. I dragged myself out of bed, sat down at my desk, and looked at my to-do list. It was overwhelming. Right then, it hit me. Out of exhaustion and frustration and the realization that I just couldn't do it anymore, I broke down right there at my desk and cried. I thought I was this strong person that could handle anything, and here I was crying in my room like a little girl because I was tired and frustrated and I wanted to go home. Then, I heard the Lord's voice, clearly, as though He was standing right next to me. "Come back to bed." I immediately accepted the invitation, realizing that my Martha tendencies had become so strong that I had been forgetting how to be like Mary, how to sit at the feet of Jesus and delight in Him.

Our theme for the year, "live the mission" is about going all out. It's about recklessly giving ourselves to the cause that Christ has laid before us and called us to. However, we have to keep our eyes on the prize. We're not serving the mission. We're serving God by fulfilling a mission that He's giving us, but the mission was never meant to replace Him. It's meant to honor Him.
In 1 Peter, we learn about the devil, and how he likes to get us off track. He's looking for that one person that just getting ready to fall off the wagon, in a sense, so he can grab them. Notice: the devil seeks who he MAY devour. He's got to get permission first. Don't give him permission. The devil likes to distract us and pervert our mission to the point where we are no longer focused on God. In fact, sometimes we don't even notice because we're still doing the mission, which is what we were doing when we were God focused and on the right track. Moral of the story: Don't get off track! Remember who and Who's you are!

Father God, help us to keep our eyes on you as we fulfill the mission You have set in front of us. May we never stop serving and glorifying you in our actions and our attitudes. We love you Jesus.