Sign up to save your podcasts
Or
Share Day 29 - Issue 17 - 04/08/16
Share to email
Share to Facebook
Share to X
Share to email
Share to Facebook
Share to X
Or
Day 29 - Issue 17 - 04/08/16
Luke 10:41-42a NLT
‘My dear Martha, you are worried and upset over all these details! There is only one thing worth being concerned about.’
Years ago when I was dating Katey, it coincided with the UK having new pipes laid for North Sea Gas. As I nervously knocked at the door of Katey’s home, not having met her parents before, the door was answered by her mother, a stern-looking Scot. Desperately reaching for my opening line, and noting the roads dug up in the immediate neighbourhood, I opened my mouth and said, with a look in the general direction of the roadworks, ‘Have you been converted yet?’ I could tell from her face that this had not been well received.
‘No,’ she growled in her Morningside accent, ‘but my daughter is trying her hardest.’ With that she spun on her heel and disappeared into the house, leaving me to wander in, crestfallen, feeling somewhat stupid and uncertain as to where to go without committing a further faux pas.
It’s never a good feeling when you upset someone, especially when that had never been your intention. Martha receives an unanticipated response from Jesus. She felt her request was perfectly legitimate; Jesus the beneficiary of her hospitality, while Mary lounged about listening to his teaching. All very well, but why not wait till everyone was sat at the meal table? Just two problems: we cannot determine or schedule when Jesus desires our close attention and then, of course, our assumptions about what we do for Jesus may not prove as essential as we believe them to be.
Like Martha, I discovered Jesus wanted me much more than the product of my skilful endeavour. I soon discovered that all I knew was doing and I proved completely inept at sitting. Yet, it was in learning to sit that I discovered more of God and was enabled to address so many of my natural flaws that I hoped my many activities would compensate for before God. Once exposed for who I was, I needed to develop the habit and practice of sitting at God’s feet.
QUESTION: Reflect upon how you might exchange activity for resting at God’s feet.
PRAYER: Sovereign Lord, I entrust everything into your hands, just as Jesus entrusted himself into your hands on the cross.
View all episodes
By PremierLuke 10:41-42a NLT
‘My dear Martha, you are worried and upset over all these details! There is only one thing worth being concerned about.’
Years ago when I was dating Katey, it coincided with the UK having new pipes laid for North Sea Gas. As I nervously knocked at the door of Katey’s home, not having met her parents before, the door was answered by her mother, a stern-looking Scot. Desperately reaching for my opening line, and noting the roads dug up in the immediate neighbourhood, I opened my mouth and said, with a look in the general direction of the roadworks, ‘Have you been converted yet?’ I could tell from her face that this had not been well received.
‘No,’ she growled in her Morningside accent, ‘but my daughter is trying her hardest.’ With that she spun on her heel and disappeared into the house, leaving me to wander in, crestfallen, feeling somewhat stupid and uncertain as to where to go without committing a further faux pas.
It’s never a good feeling when you upset someone, especially when that had never been your intention. Martha receives an unanticipated response from Jesus. She felt her request was perfectly legitimate; Jesus the beneficiary of her hospitality, while Mary lounged about listening to his teaching. All very well, but why not wait till everyone was sat at the meal table? Just two problems: we cannot determine or schedule when Jesus desires our close attention and then, of course, our assumptions about what we do for Jesus may not prove as essential as we believe them to be.
Like Martha, I discovered Jesus wanted me much more than the product of my skilful endeavour. I soon discovered that all I knew was doing and I proved completely inept at sitting. Yet, it was in learning to sit that I discovered more of God and was enabled to address so many of my natural flaws that I hoped my many activities would compensate for before God. Once exposed for who I was, I needed to develop the habit and practice of sitting at God’s feet.
QUESTION: Reflect upon how you might exchange activity for resting at God’s feet.
PRAYER: Sovereign Lord, I entrust everything into your hands, just as Jesus entrusted himself into your hands on the cross.