While watching a heartfelt, poignant and powerful message on YouTube
yesterday, I had to jot down a few notes. Tyler Hamrick was sharing on “This
One Thing” – referencing the biblical story of Martha complaining to Jesus that
her sister Mary wasn’t helping her with necessary chores. He pointed out that
Jesus wasn’t mad at Martha and He didn’t chastise Mary. His loving response to
her could have been delivered in a myriad of ways. We don’t have complete
context of their conversation, but I imagine all sorts of love and compassion
in His eyes when He said to her, “Martha, Martha, you are worried and
troubled about many things. But this one thing is needed, and Mary has chosen
that good part, which will not be taken away from her.” Luke 10:41-42 (NKJV)
Tyler (Hamrick) pointed out that “God wants us to be busy
about the kingdom, not spiritually lazy – but not at the cost of our intimacy
with Him.”
I also noted that he said, that “we can’t be busy FOR Him if
we don’t have intimacy WITH Him.”
What if God spoke to you the words He spoke to Tyler, when He
asked him, “When was the last time you just sat with Me?”
How would you answer Him?
Are we listening to what Jesus is saying to us? Or are we too
distracted?
Are we just too busy to sit with Jesus?
Martha was complaining that her sister, Mary was “just
sitting there listening to Jesus” as He spoke to the group assembled there in
her home. It had to be pointed out to her that the preparations for the Lord
mean nothing without the presence of the Lord.
“I want you to show love, not offer sacrifices. I want you to
know me more than I want burnt offerings.” Hosea 6:6 (NLT)
Even in the Old Testament, God reached out to His people for
relationship, for intimacy, which He tells us is more important to Him than “doing
things for Him”.
Doing things for God is important, “Faith without works is
dead.” (James 2:20 KJV)
But if we don’t spend time in His presence, how can we know
where He’s sending us or what He requires of us in this moment? Are we merely
doing what we think He would want us to do? What if what we’re
busy with is actually someone else’s responsibility…
We’re always busy, yet we wonder why we’re so tired all the
time.
We become like drained batteries that never get charged when
we’re too “busy about our Father’s business” to plug into the source of our
power.
It can be hard for us to just “sit and be still” with Jesus.
We need to explore why that is. We need to take that question to Him in prayer
and listen to what He points out to us.
To hear Him, we may just have to push through and sit with
Him and listen – which should be a joyful thing for us! But, for some of us,
that may be harder than anything else we need to do in our daily lives.
But “this one thing” is needful: it’s necessary, it’s essential.
