February 5, 2008 @ 9:53 am | Filed under: Mary & Martha Project

 (The following is the lesson that launched The Mary & Martha Project in our Ladies WOW.)

I don’t remember the last time I’ve felt this stirred yet this invigorated – this convicted yet this liberated – this motivated yet this tranquil. All of this at play, at once – inside me!

I’m in awe of what God is doing right now and I’m especially in awe of how He’s moving a whole church full of people at the same time.

For three Sunday nights in a row now God has spoken to the deepest recesses of my heart. I knew from that first week that something mighty and powerful lay just ahead.

I’ve been in tremendous services before, I’ve felt His power, heard His voice, experienced His touch. And it made a difference, sure. Intimate times with you always make a difference.

But this time…

This time it seems as though each Sunday is just the catipulting point for the following week. It sets the stage. With each passing day He just keeps layering on more and more dimension, revealing just a bit more on Wednesday than He did on Monday, in different areas and ways on Fridays than He did on Tuesdays.

During last night’s sermon it was all I could do to stay on my seat. The illustration of being in a river and stepping off into waters over the head just about had me jumping out of my skin.

Inside I was screaming, That is it. That’s what You’ve been showing me, little by little, day by day. I’ve felt like such a child these past few weeks – like You’ve had to take me back to a few basics.

Trust me. Step out. Don’t look to the right, don’t look to the left. Reach out and take my hand; all you need to know is that I am with you. Just do this one thing. Don’t worry about the next step until it is time. Trust me. Trust me. Trust me.

More and more every day the story of Mary and Martha would come to my mind. I began to read it every day and – every day, it seemed – I’d get another little nugget out of it that I hadn’t seen the day before. God’s word is like that. It’s new and fresh every day.

In Luke, Chapter 10 it says:

As Jesus and his disciples were on their way, he came to a village where 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.But Martha was distracted by all the preparations that had to be made. She came to him and asked, “Lord, don’t you care that my sister has left me to do the work by myself? Tell her to help me!”“Martha, Martha,” the Lord answered, “you are worried and upset about many things, but only one thing is needed. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her.”

The message seems so simple. Both women were friends of Jesus. Close friends. He loved this family. He loved them enough that He wept when their brother died.

Both women had unique talents and abilities. I have no doubt that Mary herself had served a great number of meals and – most likely – Martha had her own moments of listening instead of doing.

The fact that Jesus pointed out on this one occasion that “only one thing is needed,” and that Mary has “chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her,” doesn’t at all mean that Mary was any closer to Jesus or that He thought any less of Martha. On another given day, it could be that service was the “only one thing.”

But on this day, Jesus taught and Mary – in her hunger for more – was the one to sit at His feet.Charles Spurgeon spoke of Martha in one of his devotionals. “Her fault was not that she served.” The condition of a servant looks well every Christian. We ARE called to serve. Her fault was that she grew ‘cumbered with much serving,’ so that she forgot him and only remembered the service.”

I know all too well the tendency to feel trapped by saying ‘yes’ to one too many projects, committees, or programs – all in the name of service. Just like in the skit, it’s all too easy to let my heart be pulled away from doing things “unto the Lord” and instead just be thankful for simply getting things done.

This is where my heart and my soul have been these past few weeks. Knowing that I somehow had to get past the weights and burdens that seem to continually stack up. But I also knew that God wanted the same for each of you.

God, how on earth do I communicate this burden to these women? How do I tell them that this is the year of releasing our inner Mary and Martha’s?

Last night, in that gentle way that He has with me, His reminder was that it’s not about me. Not at all.

It’s not my responsibility to pinpoint an exact plan of how to present this year’s vision. I am one woman, and not a Superwoman, at that. I have a burden, yes, but it’s more of seeing everything in shadows; knowing what’s out there and yet not being able to pinpoint it exactly.

“Remember the ‘one thing.’” This reminder in a still, small voice made me smile.

A few days ago I had been reading a sidebar in a book called The Practical Power of “One Thing.” As I had quickly skimmed four short bullet points, I was amazed at how closely those four points echoed the past week of my life. These two really jumped out at me.

2. Ask God to reveal the next step. As you go through your day, keep asking the Lord, “What is the one thing I need to do next?” Don’t let the big picture overwhelm. Just take the next step as he reveals it…Tell about last Sunday night’s service.

After last Sunday night’s service, I have come to view my days as working out this First Step that He’s given to me. Each time this week that I’ve been tempted to jump ahead, think ahead, or worry ahead, I’ve reminded myself of Step One. Blinders on until Step One is complete.

3. Have faith that what needs to get done will get done. Since you have dedicated your day to the Lord, trust that He will show you the one thing or many things that must be done. Do what you can in the time allotted. Then trust that what wasn’t accomplished was either unnecessary or is being taken care of by God.

Hula hoops were all the rage when I was in elementary school. I remember that a good many of my friends owned several of them before I ever received my first one.It was red, with a thick white stripe running through the center.

I loved that thing.

I would stand out on the driveway, EVERY afternoon after school, practicing, practicing, practicing…

Over and over I would slip it over my head, let it shimmy down my shoulders and come to rest on non-existent (then) hips.There was only a quarter of a split second to start the hoop to spinning; if you missed that narrow window of opportunity, the hula hoop would just falter clumsily around the body a slow time or two and then land with a dull thud around the ankles.

It took me several days of non-stop tries and retries before I finally got the hang of what made the hoop spin like nobody’s business around my skinny little body. Once I got it though – the complexity of the previous days’ tries seemed so silly to me.

Very soon I was able to add two and three more hoops to my original one – and kept them all going for a very impressive amount of time!By then I could hardly believe that I had struggled so with the one hoop. I had somehow managed to turn something so simple into a frustrating series of spins, drops, and the wildest body motions ever – just to keep a plastic hoop spinning.

Most of my days lately are spent with several spinning hoops looping their way around my life. Trying to keep them all in motion at the same time has taken lots of tries and retries. Wife. Mother. Writer. Student. WOW. Nana. Friend. Daughter. Granddaughter.

I have probably dropped more of these hoops than even I would care to admit during the learning process. Over and over, I have slipped yet another “hoop” over my life and tried to catch that very brief – very narrow – window of opportunity required to achieve needed balance.

And – over and over, one or more of these hoops have given a less than stellar spin before falling, useless and clumsy, around my feet.

So on those days when the spinning feels out of control and not at all what it should be, I try my best to think back to those third grade days and the important nugget of truth that I discovered about the good ‘ol hula hoop.It’s all about finding your center.

Once you’ve found your center, you establish a certain steady easy-going rhythm and you let everything else move around that center. It’s not about wild body gyrations or fancy footwork or even great talent or ability.

It’s about tuning in to your center – your spiritual self – and then allowing the various hoops of your life to steadily and securely ring themselves around that very special rhythm you’ve established with Him.

God is doing a work. It’s not about me. It’s not about one person, or one group, or even one church. It’s about something vibrant that is about to come to fruition. It’s about reconciling the Mary and the Martha within each of us.

I know that many of you – if not all of you – are feeling something very similar to what I’ve been feeling. If you’ve been feeling – like me – a bit like a child these past few weeks – like He’s having to take you back to a few basics. Trust me. Step out. Don’t look to the right, don’t look to the left. Reach out and take my hand; all you need to know is that I am with you. Just do this one thing. Don’t worry about the next step until it is time. Trust me. Trust me. Trust me.

I want to share with you what God spoke to me this morning. For those of you who attended WOW on a regular basis last year, you KNOW I have never stood before you and told you that God spoke a specific word to me, for you. Tonight, I AM telling you just that.

This is what He wants you to know:

This is not just the basics. This is it.This is where it all gets exciting, where it all comes together – where all the years of growth and development culminate into this plan He has for us. It is truly just so mammoth in size and awesome in power that you have to be like small child in my arms before you can receive it.

I know without a doubt that this is such a widespread move right now. I know it is reaching into all avenues of the church, and this includes our women.

With every one I’ve spoken to in the past three weeks, it’s the same thing. God is doing a work, preparing this group of women to move in unity and as a sisterhood into waters – though they may be over our head and swirling about us – where healings will take place, where deliverance will be abundant, where burdens will be revealed, and ministries will spring up.

I honestly do not know how He is going to do this.

I was most nervous about tonight, and know that I can admit that here, in the safety of this sisterhood.

I am so not a Moses, but definitely so not an Aaron. It terrified me to think of standing in front of you and delivering what He gave to me. I know how difficult it is for me to verbally communicate things that I feel so deeply. I always walk away feeling like I wasn’t quite able to express it all adequately.

But…I trust Him.

I trust the confirmations he’s put in place every step of the way these past few weeks. He has put together a team of women with magnificent abilities and talents and – more than anything else – that share a common vision and burden. This is you. ALL of you.

All He’s asking of us tonight is – this one thing.

I can look back over last year and now see how You’ve moved us from the scattered places we all were to the united place where we now stand together, ready to wade out into those deeper waters we heard about last night.

Last year it was all about caring for the health of our women – spiritually, sure, but also physically and emotionally. We covered relationship issues, insecurity issues, trust issues and used team building exercises to help us learn to overcome some of the common boundaries that tend to separate us women. By the end of the year, the unity was there. We could look around our feet and see the bits of crumbled walls that You brought tumbling down amongst us.We’re ready for this time.

Do you want to know what we’re going to do?

We’re going to reach our family, one member at a time.

We’re going to tell people about the love of God – one person at a time.

We are going to hold positions. We may teach Sunday school, bake peanut brittle, visit the shut-ins, help with outreach, encourage a neighbor – but you know what? We’ll do it all just one step at a time.

We are going to hold an awesome, awesome fall retreat right here in our own church for all of our ladies as well as ladies in neighboring UPC churches. How are we going to do this? How are we going to fund this great undertaking? One M&M tube at a time.

We are one body, one unit. We are ready, equipped, and able to grasp hands and move as one into these waters. In my mind’s eye, I can truly see all the various fingers of the church merging together just like those tributaries that he talked about last night. We’re all merging into the same mighty flow of revival waters.

One thing is all that is needed.

Do you want to find YOUR one thing this year?

Do you feel like the woman in the skit who was trying to haul a wagon load of burdens all on her own? Do you feel spent, tired, void of energy, run down, depleted, irritated, agitated, restless, useless, overworked, underpaid, underappreciated?

God never intended for this journey to be work. He never intended for it to be hard. We’ll have hard days, sure. We’ll have a few hard trials. We’ve have some hard decisions. Some hard losses.

But this journey was created to be joyful. All over the world, people go to unimaginable lengths to find God – which is sad when you consider the unimaginable lengths God has already gone to find us.

He only asks one thing of each of us tonight. One thing.

He wants to give us the freedom He spoke of in Luke 10:42 – But one thing is needful. That one thing will always include true intimacy with Him.

I can’t do everything, but I can do “one thing.”

I can’t meet every need, fulfill every requested obligation, please everyone, but I can respond to His quiet voice and I can seek His will.

I can’t carry all loads that may get passed off to me, but I can carry the load that God has for me. Just for me.

His yoke is easy, and his burden is light.

One thing. That’s all He asks of us tonight.

To borrow a phrase from a friend of mine, “Sometimes we have to say no, to good things, so we can do the best thing.”

And – that too – is achieved one thing at a time.