Now as they were traveling along, He entered a village; and a woman named Martha welcomed Him into her home. She had a sister called Mary, who was seated at the Lord’s feet, listening to His word. But Martha was distracted with all her preparations; and she came up to Him and said, “Lord, do You not care that my sister has left me to do all the serving alone? Then tell her to help me.” But the Lord answered and said to her, “Martha, Martha, you are worried and bothered about so many things; but only one thing is necessary, for Mary has chosen the good part, which shall not be taken away from her.”
—Luke 10:38-42 (NASB)

We’ve all known the person who is so naturally enthusiastic that they are the first in line to volunteer for anything… and everything. In school, they wanted to be student body president, and captain of their sports team, and a member of the band, and editor of the school newspaper, and… the list goes on until they suddenly found they couldn’t do a good job of being a productive member of any of their activities. They had committed to too many things.

Last week, one of my devotionals about Mary and Martha was posted on Mary Alice Anderson’s blog, Do Good Only Life. Today we’re going to keep looking at the story of these sisters to see how we can intentionally stretch our faith by saying, “No.” 

In this passage, Martha finds herself in the same place as that friend who wanted to be a part of everything. She has so much going on—all of it good, by the way—that she no longer has time for Jesus. Not unless there is something she needs from him. 

It is so easy for us to end up in the same spot—running ourselves ragged and only pausing long enough to tell God what we need. It’s good for us to serve in our churches and volunteer at our childrens’ schools and invest in the lives of those around us. But there will always come a point where, if we choose to keep adding another spinning plate to the chaos, they will all come crashing down. 

I can’t help but wonder if the root of Martha’s decision to keep serving was pride. I can almost hear Martha thinking to herself that if it weren’t for her, the whole gathering would fall apart and all would be chaos.

But it was never Martha who was keeping the chaos in order. Had she decided to stop serving and sit at Jesus’ feet like her sister, the gathering would have gone on just as before because Jesus was the one holding things together in the first place.

For us, that means the annual bake sale fundraiser will be fine without our brownies this year. And in most cases, the choir or welcome ministry won’t fall apart and cease to exist if we take a few weeks off to focus on our family and our relationship with Christ. It can be nerve-racking to let it go, but that’s where stretching our faith comes in!

And then we come to Mary. There was plenty that Mary could have been doing, just like her sister. Socially, it would have been expected of her to help Martha serve—which is something we know to be good, if for no other reason than Jesus modeled it for us. 

But instead of doing what was socially expected of her, Mary chose to trust God with her time. Just as it takes faith to stop and pause in the middle of all the hustle and bustle of our day, it also takes faith to turn down a good opportunity because you know your schedule is already full.

It’s probably safe to guess that Mary was much more equipped to fully invest into what Jesus had for her that day than Martha was because she was not reluctant to let go of her work. As we go throughout this week, let’s stretch our faith by turning off our inner Marthas and choosing to be selective about the opportunities we take on so we can fully invest in what God has for us.