Action!

The Lord is, indeed, not finished with us yet. The Holy Spirit is hard at work inside of us constantly, non-stop. Some of us, like me, still have a long way to go until we are able to experience total transformation. I often, still fall into my old ways and defaults…hence the need for forgiveness. That doesn’t mean, however, that the Lord doesn’t allow people like me… or like Martha… moments of immense clarity.

Let’s look at Martha again. As we have seen, Martha is a down-to-earth, practical, realistic woman who struggles with her priorities and with figuring out what is most important. It might be said of Martha that she is action-prone and word-focused rather than contemplative and spiritually-minded. That describes a lot of us, doesn’t it? I know it describes me in a lot of ways…

In her nature, however, our Lord chose Martha to reveal Himself in a most magnificent manner. Let’s look at this passage from John 11:

When Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went out to meet him, but Mary stayed at home.

“Lord,” Martha said to Jesus, “if you had been here, my brother would not have died. But I know that even now God will give you whatever you ask.”

Jesus said to her, “Your brother will rise again.”

Martha answered, “I know he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day.”

Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live, even though they die; and whoever lives by believing in me will never die. Do you believe this?”

“Yes, Lord,” she replied, “I believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, who is to come into the world.” John 11: 20-27

There is so much in here, but let’s begin by dissecting verse 20:

When Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went out to meet him, but Mary stayed at home.

I L O V E this passage. Our beloved Martha, springing into action as soon as she hears the Lord is near. That is a reflection of her personality. She can’t help it: “The Lord is here!? Let’s get walking!” If Martha is anything like me…which I think by now, I have discovered that we are pretty much kindred souls…there is no way she could just sit quietly and wait for Him to arrive. No way! Martha is all about action.  She’s gotta get moving! BTW, look at what Mary does...  :) 

You may say that reaction is impulsive, without much forethought…and you would be completely correct. It is a really weird combination of wanting to be in absolute control of all situations surrounding us, while at the same time acting in an arbitrary fashion…go figure…if you are confused, you are just getting a little glimpse of how I’ve felt all my life.

But anyway, the beauty of it all is that the Lord works in us in spite of and through whatever our nature might be like. He uses the essential elements of our being for His purposes, regardless of how conflicting those essential elements might seem. And that’s what we will be exploring in the next few posts, so stay tune!