By my side

Hello, this is my first blog here. I’m Sharon, and I’m sitting here with Mary and Martha, sisters in the New Testament of the Bible.

If you know anything about the Bible, you will know the story of Mary and Martha (in Luke10:38-42) when one worried too much about serving, and one sat at Jesus’ feet to listen to what He had to say. Martha was the server, Mary was the listener. As Ecclesiastes 3 says, there is a time for every purpose. There is a time to bustle about with much serving, and there is a time to sit and listen to the word of God being spoken. At this occasion, the time was to do more listening than serving. “Mary hath chosen that good part which will not be taken from her”.

Both women were strong and both posessed qualities God has said were what a godly woman should posess. I want Mary and Martha by my side. I want to be a little of both in the right balance. Martha was chastised by Jesus by being concerned about “much” serving. Her serving was not condemned, but enough was enough and she was trying to do too much. Don’t we do this as women sometimes? Do we try to prepare too big a meal for out of town visitors so much so that we skip Bible class on Sunday morning? If there is a potluck after church, do we busy ourselves in the kitchen too long to get that dish just right, when enough would have been okay?

And, dare I say that sitting and listening too long or too many times to stirring sermons or singing on a cd in the car when a dear child in the back seat is trying to tell us of the day at school can be too much? We need to balance our listening to God with being obedient to God. Too much listening and not enough doing is not pleasing to God either – “be ye doers of the word and not hearers only” James 1:22. There is a story in the Old Testament when God told the Israelites to stop asking and take action!

I admit I’m ‘way out of balance. I’ve always been cautious of being more like Mary and nothing like Martha. I’ve learned how wrong my thinking was. Yes, Mary had chosen the good part, the needful part. Martha was feeding the hungry people that came to her house. Yet, it was time to quit serving and start learning. Serving is needful, but so is learning. There is a balance and I’m trying to walk up the seesaw half that is on the ground and stand in the middle, like we used to do on the playground when I was a little girl. It can be tricky, but it can be done.