Over the past weekend
I kept calling people ‘Mary’ and I clicked this morning what was going on, the
Lord was reminding me to be a ‘Mary’ to sit at Jesus feet and so I looked up
the story about Martha and Mary.
We all know the story but for me this morning as the Lord is saying to
‘prepare for expansion’ he is also saying in the preparation to keep sitting at
his feet. Luke 10:40 “But Martha was distracted by all the
preparations that had to be made. “
In this season where we need to make room for expansion, it is easy to
get distracted with all the preparations that need to be made, easy to not sit
and be with Jesus.
Luke 10:38 – 41, 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.
The scripture above
spoke to me personally as we are opening our home to the Lord and to the people
he brings, how do we sit and listen to all that Jesus says and yet still get
the preparations done? I pondered
this question and then the Lord reminded me once again of what happened last
week. People came and helped with
the things that needed to be
done. One woman turned up at my
home and started to help clean when I had had no time for cleaning. I didn’t need to ask her, she was
prompted by the Lord to come and do it.
He reminded me that he will bring the people that will do the various
things that need to be done. We
all have our part and we need to respond to the part that the Lord puts on our
heart and do what he releases us to do.
But first we need to listen to him. It was in listening to him that the woman responded and came
and helped clean. When we listen
to him, when we sit at his feet, we hear what we need to do and we then need to
trust him to do the rest. We can
only do what he gives us to do, and if we find ourselves rushing around then we
are often doing things that he has not asked us to do.
In my rushing around
this morning and preparing my home, the Lord gently asked the question – ‘Sarah
who are you serving, God or man.’
Are you serving the people more that I am bringing to your home than you
are serving me. He prompted me to
go and pick some roses but at the same time someone came to our home. I was tempted to go immediately to
minister with the people but Jesus showed me not to and to go and pick the
roses because actually Jesus was more important and I had felt him say to go
and pick some roses, but because someone turned up I felt the need to go and be
with them. God is big enough to
minister to the people on his own without me. He doesn’t need me.
He can turn up in a cloud all on his own and bring what needs to be
brought and so I took my time and went and picked the roses first and then God
did what he wanted to do and it was so much better than if I had gone in
rushing and not at peace.
God is sooo good in
realigning our focus and shifting it back to where it should be. And so I share this with you and hope
it helps you to keep your focus where it also needs to be and ask that you
would pray for me in the shifting of seasons and the preparations of expansion
that I would take that time to just sit at Jesus feet and listen to him and
trust him that everything will get done that needs to get done.
