As Jesus and his disciples were on their way, he came to a village where a woman named Martha opened her home to him. She had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet listening to what he said. But Martha was distracted by all the preparations that had to be made.
Luke 10:38-40
From Stretched to Stilled
As busy twenty-first-century Americans it’s easy to relate to Martha. She’s described as “distracted.” Do you ever feel that way, too? The Greek word for “distracted” here literally means to be pulled or stretched in every direction. Do you feel that pull, too? There are responsibilities and expectations to be met, programs your children are enrolled in, and deadlines at work. The ever-present distractions of digital media and your phone don’t help either. Do you feel like Bilbo Baggins in the Lord of the Rings when he says that he feels “thin, sort of stretched, like butter scraped over too much bread”?
The hard part of all this is that sometimes the things that distracts us aren’t bad. Look what Martha was doing. She was trying to serve Jesus. He was a guest in her house. She wanted him to be well taken care of, well-fed, and comfortable. That’s certainly not a bad thing. Jesus had no issue with her loving service to him. But he had an issue with what all that busy service and work was doing to her soul. What she needed most was not to serve Jesus but to be served by Jesus. She was allowing her work to distract her from what was most important—the one thing needed—hearing the words of Jesus.
Modern life pulls us in a hundred directions and distracts us. But Jesus cuts through all of it to give us the one thing we really need—himself. He’s the one thing that fills us up even as the world empties our tanks with over-filled schedules and countless concerns. The words of Jesus are the one thing needed to counteract all that. We need to be stilled, not stretched. Jesus invites us to still our troubled souls at his feet so that we can be filled with all his loving service to us.
Prayer:
Dear Jesus, let your Word still my distracted hearts so I can be filled with your calming grace. Amen.
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All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®. Copyright ©1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc. ™ Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide.
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