Nothing in this world irritates me more than when I’m on my feet working and someone else just sits there doing nothing. I may be washing dishes, prepping dinner, cleaning up a spill, packing lunch boxes, changing a diaper, folding clothes or spinning one of the 15 plates thrown to moms to spin every day. When I’m breaking a sweat tending to everyone, and look over to see someone else sitting there, I immediately feel angry.
How dare you rest while I’m working.
You don’t get to sit down till I get to sit down.
Get up and help me.
I imagine all the work piled up on Martha after hosting dinner. I actually don’t have to imagine very hard. Most of us know clean-up tasks quite well. Yet with all this work to do, her sister Mary just sat there.
Martha was indignant. I would be too.
But Luke 10:40 says Martha was “distracted.”
Woah, Luke! I think you got that wrong. Mary was the distracted one, not Martha, right? Martha was ON TASK. She was working, cleaning, picking up, performing, box-checking. She wasn’t distracted. MARY got distracted when she wandered off to sit down, right. Nope.
Jesus rebukes Martha. He tells her she is worried and anxious. Then he tells Martha some of my favorite and most convicting words in scripture, “One thing is necessary.”
What one thing? Working hard? Hosting people in your home? Serving others? Doing good works? Taking care of everyone and every thing? Spinning all the plates in the air?
One thing is necessary: To sit with Jesus.
Here are 5 reasons “Just sitting there” with Jesus is the one necessary thing in our lives.
- We find salvation: We don’t come to Christ working hard, we come with nothing except our sin. We come to the savior, trusting in his work on the cross to save us. We can’t earn our salvation. We must come as passive recipients, having faith in his work alone to save us.
- We sit to enjoy Christ. When God saves us through Christ, he changes our heart to know and love him. We adore Christ! We prize him most of all. We enjoy him. We get to sit and savor a relationship with him. We sit at his feet and he satisfies our deepest desires. We are saved to love the Lord and enjoy him.
- We receive so we can give. We can’t give what we don’t have. We are branches; he is the vine. We must be connected to him to produce any fruit. Sitting at his feet daily, we receive the love, patience, strength, and peace to serve him. We give because we’ve received all from Christ.
- We learn to know him. Mary wasn’t actually “just sitting there” at all. She listened to Jesus teach. We sit at his feet and soak in the word to know the real Jesus. We delight to study scripture and conform our lives to his word written for us.
- We know his plan for us: We want to walk in the good works he’s prepared for us to do, so we must spend time with him. He will guide our lives with purpose for his glory, strengthen us in suffering, and fill us with his presence. We sit at his feet daily, study the word, and pray to know his will for us.
We must be women who set aside every single demanding thing in our lives in order to spend time with Jesus. He is the fountain we drink from that fills us full. He is the only one who will satisfy. The enemy will try to convince you that tasks are more urgent than just sitting there with Him, they aren’t. May you be found at his feet, soaking in his teaching and his love for you. The spinning plates may break, but you won’t. He loves you so much, my sisters!