(Jesus and Martha #2. Note: Martha is not my daughter, she is a part of my own brain- one that fights with God often, but one he made and He loves nonetheless:) )
Why does Martha cling to her list so tightly? Doesn’t she know that her refusal to set it down is making her sick? Why does she hold onto it, white-knuckled, and chase its never-ending demands even when she is exhausted and stumbling?
I think she’s scared.
Martha is afraid to set down her list.
She is desperate to do some good in the world, to help and fix all the things. She fights things like ‘acceptance’ because so many things to her are unacceptable.
But her passion for goodness and change gets tangled with an ugly, driven desire to control and badger and FORCE this world to be the way she thinks it ought to be, immediately.
She’s not in control. And sometimes, that’s the most unacceptable thing of all.
Why does Martha cling to her list so tightly?
Because everything could fall apart.
But still, if everything does fall apart...she can at least say she tried. She can hold her head up, justified, that she was not one of THOSE people who whittled their lives away chasing the wind.
Except that, in her drivenness, she sometimes forgets what she’s chasing, or why.
Why does Martha cling to her list so tightly?
Because if she sets it down, then there will be stillness.
These things make Martha writhe in discomfort.
She does not want to take a breath, or a step back to see the big picture. She does not want to remember that she is small. She does not want to see how often she gets off track, or to come in out of the wind and the noise. She does not want to confess, repent, and reorient herself around truth. She just wants to keep moving.
She is afraid of many things. And she will not rest.
She will not rest, or she CAN not rest?
Perhaps she can be taught to rest.
Perhaps she can learn to see the presence of God in her midst, to sit at his feet and feel her smallness, to place the burdens she carries into His hands where they belong.
She may come into His presence with clenched fist and heart;
she may fight her own smallness, and her lack of control,
and the stillness in the presence of God that her soul desperately needs.
Bring your list if you must, Martha,
even restless, or afraid,
you are welcome and invited
to sit in the presence of Jesus
who gives rest to your soul.
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