The Martha Syndrome

Luke 10

⁸ Now it happened as they went that He entered a certain village; and a certain woman named Martha welcomed Him into her house. ³⁹ And she had a sister called Mary, who also sat at Jesus’^[k] feet and heard His word. ⁴⁰ But Martha was distracted with much serving, and she approached Him and said, “Lord, do You not care that my sister has left me to serve alone? Therefore tell her to help me.”
⁴¹ And Jesus^[l] answered and said to her, “Martha, Martha, you are worried and troubled about many things. ⁴² But one thing is needed, and Mary has chosen that good part, which will not be taken away from her.”

     So here I find something that seems to pertain to my life. Martha is Distracted by Service. I've gotten so busy being useful as work that I've gotten to putting aside other things that are more important. Work should never be a higher priority than Family or the Callings of God.

• Martha: Distracted with Service

• Mary: Sat and Listened to THE WORD.

     MARY chose the better thing!  To listen to The Word is the BEST thing you can ever do. That includes not just hearing The Word, but actually doing what it says. It's FAR better for me to reserve "Research and Learning" time until I have at LEAST done what He has ASKED me to do. Set times and dates for these activities and follow through. This should help keep things on track.

     As long as I DON'T spend my attention and energy on the things HE has called me to do, they will never happen.

     I may have dreams of owning business and publishing books and websites. But if I don't actually DO things to head toward it, it will never happen. How do I read a story about MARTHA DOING being the bad choice and come to the conclusion I need to DO MORE?

GOOD QUESTION... the answer is...

     I don't. I need to DO LESS of the things that are distracting me and DO MORE of the things of higher priority that HE has asked me to do. THIS is what MARY was doing. She wasn't doing nothing. She was doing something of HIGHER VALUE AND IMPORTANCE!

Darrell G. Wolfe