The first chapter is focused on Luke 10:41-42 which goes, "And Jesus answered and said to her, "Martha, Martha, you are worried and troubled about many things. But one thing is needed, and Mary has chosen the good portion, which will not be taken away from her."
As a busy mother and wife, many things are necessary to manage our home, be a helper to my husband, and bring up our children in the Lord. By the time you are done with cooking, cleaning, laundry, grocery shopping, disciplining the kids, getting them off to school, or homeschooling you have little hours left in the day. This doesn't even include the things you need to do for a ministry you are serving in at church. Helping with a ladies meeting, going to a biblestudy, bringing someone a meal, planning a baby shower, discipling a younger woman. There are a lot of things that demand our attention!
I would venture to say that most of us women, if not all of us, can relate to Martha. Now all the things I just listed are good things. God calls us to make disciples, study His word, serve in the church, give to missions, pray for others, but if we do all those things and leave out what is the most needed, then we will always fail to truly worship Him in our daily activities.
Now if we go back and look at Luke 10:39 it says Mary was "seated at the Lord's feet, listening to His word."
John Macarthur comments on this passage,"Most people, unfortunately, are exactly like Martha - preoccupied, distracted, too busy serving to sit at the Savior's feet. Living in a high-tech age, we tend to be driven by time clocks, deadlines, schedules, appointments, obligations, assignments, and urgent things beyond our control. Few people feel they can afford to put worship at the top of their "To Do" list. The truth is, we can't afford not to. Worship is ultimately our first priority. Nothing on anyone's agenda is more important."
The Lord isn't saying to not be busy. As women we will be busy and we will always have a lot on our plate. If you read Proverbs 31:10-31, you see that this woman who is said to be excellent and fear the Lord, is a very busy woman. In vs 13 she is working with her hands, vs 14 and 15 she is preparing food for her family, vs 16 she is making a profit to help financially, vs 19 to 22 she is making her family and others clothing and vs 27 she is not idle. But if you notice in vs 25 her intimate relationship with the Lord is shown by her trust and confidence in her God, in good times and bad. We may be "busy" with many things tugging at us from all different directions, but may we not be anxious and troubled by them, and may we never leave out the most important, the most needed thing of all.
Joseph Carroll writes in his book that, "the best time to worship is, of course, in the morning, in that time that we call a quiet time." But what is a quiet time? I used to think it was a time when I would read a few chapters of the book of the Bible I was going through and pray for the people on my prayer list. That is not a quiet time, that is a study time and a time for intercession, but not a quiet time.
Matthew 6:6 says, "But you, when you pray, go into your inner room, close your door and pray to your Father who is in secret, and your Father who sees what is done in secret will reward you." You need to be alone. Whether you are in a closet, a room, a forest, or a car. The main thing is you get alone with you Father. When we pray, we enter into the very presence of God only by the blood of Jesus. May that great truth never grow dull to us. We need to be in awe of not only what God has done for us, but who He is. These are the things we should think on when we are having our quiet time. Instead of looking at the clock and saying, 'I only have a few minutes to get through my prayer list and read these few verses and then I can go on about my day', we should simply be bowing down and worshiping the Lamb of God who was slain for us. The only One who is worthy of our worship.
Psalm 27:4 says, "One thing I have desired of the LORD, that I will seek: that I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the LORD, and to meditate in His temple." David was a great man, a great leader, a king, an amazing psalmist, but the only thing he desired was to behold the beauty of the Lord and have intimate fellowship with God. We must seek Him with all our heart!
Now back to Martha and Mary. Martha was not the only one busy - Mary was busy too, just in a different way. Martha was allowing all the "things" in her life to swallow her up and spit her out. She was complaining against the Lord and then commanding Him to do something about it. She was so distracted by the world around her that she completely missed the most important part. I used to read this story and think the difference between Martha and Mary is their personalities. Martha is busy and involved in a lot of things and Mary is quiet and reserved. I've come to see that that's not it at all. The difference between these two women is this: Mary made a choice. Martha did not. It's natural for women to be looking after our home, cooking up dinner in the kitchen and ordering people around to help in this way and that way. We must make a choice to seek the Lord. And it's not an east choice. As we fulfill our calling to the Lord, may we not forget the one thing which is needed to set the foundation of a Christ glorifying life. May we consciously make a daily choice to seek hard after the Lord with all our heart and cast off every hindrance that is weighing us down. May we sit at His feet and adore the One who gave His life for us and experience a personal love between you and your God. May we commune with Him in complete aloneness, almost as if there were no one else in the world. May we pour out our love on the Savior's feet, just as Mary poured out the costly oil.
"We were created to worship Jesus Christ. We were created for Him, to become something to Him in order that He might find pleasure in us. But this demands discipline. This demands self-renunciation. This demands the mortifying of the flesh. This demands the taking out of our lives everything that does not contribute to the one great objective."
