My best friend is a Mary, and I’m a Martha. We talk like this all the time:
“I’ve been so extremely Martha the past couple of days, I’m starting to burn out. I need a nap!”
Or “You should meet this friend of mine. She’s from D.C., and she’s very much a Mary.”
Or “Your Martha-ness is so good for me.”
“Well your Mary-ness is good for me!”
What am I talking about? Remember the two sisters who knew Jesus in the flesh? For the one named Mary, it was natural for her to plop down and do nothing but listen and absorb who Jesus was. Meanwhile it was natural for her sister Martha to be a whirlwind in the kitchen, creating something awesome for Jesus and his fellow travelers.
Both sound commendable, right? Yet here’s what’s stabbing to me and to task-oriented people everywhere (men can be Marthas, too): Jesus didn’t commend Martha. He told her that Mary was making better use of that moment.
The Marys I know journal their spiritual lives. When they get alone and away from it all, they immediately turn to soaking up Jesus. They’re just better at – bent toward – sitting still and sitting long with the Lord. They’re more easily spiritual. Their houses are dirty, yes, but who cares? They know God. They know Him deep, deep, deep.
In recent moments when I’ve felt angsty about not knowing God the way that I’d like to, I’ve bemoaned being created a Martha. I mean, really, how is it fair? In my mind, if a Mary and a Martha were given the same number of years on earth, the same hard stuff and the same good stuff, the Mary would turn out more intimate with the Lord. It’s her nature. It’s not Martha’s.
Why was she given an edge?
Why can’t I know Him, or why does chasing God have to be a chore on my to-do list?
I’ll never catch up. I might as well just sit down. At my craft table, to finish my multiple projects.
God saw the lies I was swallowing up and reminded me that yes, I was created – Hello! Created! – this way on purpose. Because cultivating intimacy is beautiful and still important for all of us, but someone has to get things done sometimes.
I’m restless. I need to be busy. I go OUT OF MY MIND when I’m not. God knows this, and I think He’s sympathetic towards it. And I’m guessing He might not require me to find Him the way the Marys do.
There are times, no doubt, when I throw myself into my to-do list, and right away sense Him telling me to stop and choose the better thing. Sometimes I will have to actually stop (and even sit on my hands if I must) in order to hear all of what He has to say. I’m not exempt from this. And if this won’t happen without it appearing on my to-do list, so be it. Friends and family go on the list all the time. For a Martha, that’s realistic. So yes, to know Him the way the Marys seem to know Him, I have to find a way to be still.
But I think God is reassuring me that He knows how to use my restlessness, my sometimes ridiculous productivity. I’m in the thick of a writing project right now, and I believe that working at it is devotion. I’m telling a handful of people’s stories of how God was active in their lives this time last year. They’re real stories that fed my faith when I heard them, and I feel like other people need to hear them, too. You can see why penning these feels like devotion, and why it doesn’t always have to be a preformatted Time Spent with the Lord.
I’ve known for a while, too, that I feel closest to God when I’m serving people. I mean serving people more than what naturally happens in my selfishly motivated daily life. When it inconveniences me, and when I scrub someone else’s counters instead of scrubbing my own to meet my needs, then my relationship to God is right and healthy. This is an enormous relief, you know? God is pleased for me to channel that restlessness into good works. And when that’s quiet work with my hands, my mind is freed up to think lovely thoughts about Him.
You’re alright, Martha. You’re not inferior! We need you. You’re the motion of the Kingdom.
RACHEL KERR 