When I get honest, I admit I am a bundle of paradoxes. I believe and I doubt, I hope and get discouraged, I love and I hate, I feel bad about feeling good, I feel guilty about not feeling guilty. I am trusting and suspicious. I am honest and I still play games. Aristotle said I am a rational animal; I say I am an angel with an incredible capacity for beer. To live by grace means to acknowledge my whole life story, the light side and the dark. In admitting my shadow side I learn who I am and what God’s grace means. As Thomas Merton put it, “A saint is not someone who is good but who experiences the goodness of God.” The gospel of grace nullifies our adulation of televangelists, charismatic superstars, and local church heroes. It obliterates the two-class citizenship theory operative in many American churches. For grace proclaims the awesome truth that all is gift. All that is good is ours not by right but by the sheer bounty of a gracious God. While there is much we may have earned–our degree and our salary, our home and garden, a Miller Lite and a good night’s sleep–all this is possible only because we have been given so much: life itself, eyes to see and hands to touch, a mind to shape ideas, and a heart to beat with love. We have been given God in our souls and Christ in our flesh. We have the power to believe where others deny, to hope where others despair, to love where others hurt. This and so much more is sheer gift; it is not reward for our faithfulness, our generous disposition, or our heroic life of prayer. Even our fidelity is a gift, “If we but turn to God,” said St. Augustine, “that itself is a gift of God.” My deepest awareness of myself is that I am deeply loved by Jesus Christ and I have done nothing to earn it or deserve it.
~Brennan Manning, The Ragamuffin Gospel: Good News for the Bedraggled, Beat-Up, and Burnt Out
Now as they went on their way, Jesus entered a village. And a woman named Martha welcomed him into her house. And she had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet and listened to his teaching. But Martha was distracted with much serving. And she went up to him and said, “Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to serve alone? Tell her then to help me.” But the Lord answered her, “Martha, Martha, you are anxious and troubled about many things, but one thing is necessary. Mary has chosen the good portion, which will not be taken away from her.”
~ Jesus, King of The Universe, in Luke 10
Oh beloved, it is true. There is within us, this need to get out and do all that we think we need to do. And this need for everyone to know that what we are doing is amazing. We scatter about, hoping that we will be noticed. This is our problem.
However, in all our efforts to try and get noticed, we stop noticing the One Whose attention is the only thing we care about anyway.
There is an answer.
Be still.
Sit at His feet.
Quit struggling.
And we know it is true. The busyness is killing us. We are flying around in some sort of frenetic storm; trying to get things done. But, the harder we try, the harder it gets to complete anything actually. We are falling further behind, the harder that we run.
Oh, have no doubt, there is an incredibly large amount of work to get done. The fields really are white unto harvest. And the very gates of hell are arrayed against us. We are indeed marching against a blizzard of the fiery darts of the evil one.
But, scheme after scheme is laid around us in such a way as to destroy us if we move with the kind of energy we think we need to move. Running without clear directions through a minefield is really stupid.
Can we see it? Mary was not lazy. Mary was preparing for battle in the same way that General Joshua was doing it all the way back in Exodus. She (and he) sat in the near Presence of The King of The Universe… And they were very reticent to leave that place.
Can we see it? In that place, they learned more about how to go through the death traps of this life, than they ever could have just trying to run and gun their way through all the incredibly challenging situations they were sure to face.
Wisdom
Strength
Encouragement
Hope
Love
Power
Motivation
Purpose
Joy
And more…
So beloved, are you too busy? This fool of a writer often gets that way, and he often acts the Martha in many situations. However, i am learning to stop and sit at His feet. Perhaps this, too, is a lesson for you as well. Tonight is your night. Time to sit at His feet, that you might be able to run faster.
