3:11

 

Ecclesiastes 3:11 is one of my favourite verses in the Bible. I’ve often read it when things don’t look pretty, and I remind myself that he will make everything beautiful in it’s time. I’ve often told myself that over and over again. But I realised something the last time I read this verse. It doesn’t say “he will make everything beautiful in it’s time” like I thought it did. Not at all. I mixed up one word in that verse. But that one word makes all the difference. It doesn’t say that one day he will make your circumstance beautiful.  To me that sounds like he will one day get around to making your ugly mess beautiful. It doesn’t say that he is making everything beautiful in it’s time. That sounds like he’s making it beautiful as you go. No no!! It doesn’t say any of that at all. It say “ he HAS MADE everything beautiful in it’s time.”  It’s already done. And one day you’ll look back and say: wow!! How beautiful. It was like that the whole time, and only now I’ve seen it. 

So if your going through something ugly or hard right now, remember, he has made it beautiful in it’s time!! 

Not enough time!!

As I was working the other day I couldn’t help but think of time. It seems like no matter how hard and fast I work, there’s never enough time!!! There’s never enough time to stop and say: we’ve done it all…let’s rest.

 I can work late or start early, yet there is still not enough time!!! How true the statement is for us as Christians. We don’t have the time to waste wishing for life to get easier. We are running out of time to get right with God. We waste soo much time holding grudges, and proving that we are right,  that it’s embarrassing!!! We waste soo much time wondering what would happen if we happened to push someone away from the edge of a cliff that falls to hell!! We are embarrassed!!! Oh how foolish we are!!!! We also waste time waiting for the right moment!! Now is the Right moment!!! Now is the accepted time!!! Don’t waste any more time, friends. We also waste time arguing and fighting with one another, while millions of sinners are filing unnoticed past you on their way to hell! Oh Christian!! Don’t let this happen anymore. Start doing what’s right now! Forgive now! You don’t have tomorrow!!! You only have today! Stop looking at others and how you compare to them, and start looking to Jesus. We are running out of time…we haven’t the time to waste sitting in despair. We must stand up and drag a sinner to the cross of Calvary. 

Application

 Well folks, here it is!! What we’ve all been waiting for!!! The application to the story. But I must admit…it was very hard to know what to write as there is just soooo much to learn from this story. So I decided to pick one thing from each section that really spoke to me. 

So let’s do a quick recap before we keep going…

So first we saw what happened. We read the story. Then we looked at her good and bad qualities.  And after looking at those, we dug a little deeper and found out what may of been some of her emotions.  

So now for the application!!!! Let’s go through each section and see what we can learn from each one! 

Bad qualities: I think something that is so easy for me to do, as it was for Martha to do, is to get distracted!! I get distracted from the goal. My goal is to honour and glorify my king, yet I get distracted and try to hour and glorify Mary instead of Jesus!!! Mary is my biggest distraction!! I want to please Mary! I want to make sure she is feeling comfortable and happy with me!!! I become so caught up with Mary instead of Christ! Oh may we all remember who it is in control, and who it is that we should have out eyes fixed on!!! 

Good Qualities: I think one of the big things I learnt from her good qualities was her servants heart. I learnt a few things here. She let her servants heart take her focus of Christ. Oh it’s so easy for me to do this. I get so caught up serving others! I end up trying to impress others. Yet that’s not the goal. I need to glorify God in everything I do! Don’t let your gift move your focus, dear friend! Focus on glorifying God through your talent. Give him all the glory and honour. Colossians 3:17 But then I also admire her servants heart. She wasn’t afraid of taking on the big task of serving the most amazing person she’d ever met. Like seriously!!! I wouldn’t have let Jesus come to my home. I would’ve thought up a thousand excuses as to why he couldn’t come. But she didn’t. Not once is it mentioned that she put up a fuss about Jesus coming to stay. She willingly had him. May we all learn from this extremely hospitable lady! 

Emotions: hmm…this was a hard one as each one of those feelings I’m very prone to. But I think probably what spoke to me the most was how she felt  overwhelmed. This is a very real feeling. I often feel very overwhelmed. And funny enough, sometimes the very talent you are given overwhelms you. Like we see with Martha, she got very overwhelmed in her job of serving. Whether it be in my gifts, life, or work, I get very overwhelmed very easily. And I find that when I get overwhelmed, then I react the same way as Martha. Resentment, self pity, and loneliness quickly set in! But how do you avoid being overwhelmed? Well, partly that’s my fault. I let so much happen to me that it is very overwhelming just to hear what I’m doing each day. But I think the key to keeping yourself stay in check when you start feeling overwhelmed is staying your mind on Christ. Feeling overwhelmed is sometimes something that you can’t avoid. But there is a way to handle it. And that’s by keeping your eyes on Christ. He is the author of our life!!! We can trust in him all the time. He is very trustworthy. So next time you start feeling overwhelmed…look to Christ. He will take what seems like the biggest problem ever, and he will turn it into something good. 

But that’s only a touch of what we can learn from Martha. It’s such a wonderful story with so many bits a pieces that’s it’s hard to compile into a few phrases. I also love good challenging questions. So here’s a few to chew on: 

What in your life is similar to Martha, and how can you change it? 

Where Are your eyes fixed and what is your goal? 

Who are you glorifying right now with what you are doing? 

A bad day

 By the time she got to Jesus, I think Martha was feeling pretty sorry for herself. Since she doesn’t want to be rude to the honoured guest, she starts of in a sweet, polite voice. “Lord…” but as soon as she speaks she cannot contain all the emotions. “DO YOU NOT CARE????” Here I think I hear a twinge of bitterness. “Do you not care that my sister has left me to serve alone? Tell her to come and help me.” After hearing that, I’m picking she’s feeling a bit lonely too. She has to serve alone! It’s always easier and better to have someone there with you as you work. The company makes the work so much easier. But here she is, feeling overwhelmed with this huge workload. Slowly she starts feeling resentful towards her sister, which turns into self-pity, which turns into loneliness. Now being lonely often causes a lot of frustration, and here we see that Martha is pretty frustrated when she talks to Jesus. She can’t get her work done without Mary, and Mary is just sitting there listening. But to make matters worse, take a look at Jesus’ reply in verse 41. His reply also shows us two more of her emotions. ANXIOUS and TROUBLED. In verse 41, Jesus pointed out to Martha Mary’s focus. Her focus is listening to Jesus. But what is Martha’s focus?? Her focus is on Pleasing Jesus. 

I imagine the feeling of disappointment when she hears Jesus’s gentle rebuke. She was doing her best, but as Jesus pointed out, she had the wrong focus.  He wasn’t telling her that she was wrong, but more showing her where her focus should be. He loves her soo very much, and only wants what’s best for her, and that means wanting her to have the right focus. 

 I imagine Martha hanging her head with hot tears running down onto the floor as she realises her mistake. 

Emotions

 So a quick recap: 

First we heard the story of how Martha and Jesus met. Then we saw her good qualities that made her stand out. Lastly we saw her bad qualities that got her in trouble. 

Now we’ll look into her emotions. Now you’re prolly thinking: what?? Martha has emotions??                     Well, yes, she does have emotions. 

I can just imagine some of the feelings/emotions that must’ve been running through Martha. I can just imagine her EXCITEMENT when she heard that Jesus was coming to town. But I also think it would’ve quickly turned to a NERVOUS twinge when it was decided that he would come to her house. Here is someone who loves serving others, and Jesus, the king of kings, accepts her invite to share a meal at her house. If she’s anything like me, then I think she would’ve definitely been feeling nervous. But I also think she spend would’ve started to feel overwhelmed once he arrived and she found out she was alone to serve!!! I have that feeling many a times, but it’s usually not started by excitement.  I always feel nervous when my boss comes into my department, and I feel nervous and overwhelmed when the big boss comes to inspect my work!! And sometimes I don’t keep my cool! And because of my reaction sometimes, I can kinda imagine what Martha’s reaction would be! “I mean, where is Mary anyways?? Doesn’t she know that chicken can’t get cooked by itself? And a table won’t get set without some hands!!! Oh yeah! That’s right, she wants me to do it all!!! Ok then!! Is that the way to treat the hard-working lady of the family?” Slowly her heart fills with RESENTMENT. So with a bang of a pot onto the stove, and a kicks at the chair to move it out of the way, Martha stomps off to find Mary! 

You’ll have to wait till next week to find out the rest of Martha’s emotions, and how Jesus deals with her!! (If I can wait that long!;)) 

Lord, don’t you care?

 Having a servants heart led her to be so caught up with serving that she took her eyes off Jesus and onto her serving. She wanted everything to be just right. Serving, however, is not her big sin. It was that her focus was on the wrong thing. She was so busy trying to impress Jesus that she had no time to listen to him.

So let’s dig a bit deeper into verse 40, and see if we can uncover some of her mistakes. 

So we see she was distracted with much serving. So she was BUSY and DISTRACTED!! She was using her amazing talent, but unfortunately, serving became a distraction to her. As soon as she allowed serving to distract her and make her become busy, she became BOSSY! She started telling Jesus what to do. This is also when her boldness became a problem. Her respectful voice quickly turned into a bossy tone. But Jesus gently rebuked her by pointing out some beautiful truths. 

HWSGRB

 Now as we read this story, try not focus on her bad points. You see we seem to put a lot of emphasis on her bad points and forget about her good points. So let’s try have a balance here. 

In Luke 10:38, we see Martha’s two amazing points. Notice that the story doesn’t start off with her bad points, but two of her amazing qualities. Now we don’t know if this was the first time Martha and Jesus had met, but imagine it was. Imagine Martha’s excitement of having a miracle maker coming to town. Her small little village for that matter!!!! The excitement would still be there even if they had met before. Martha’s immediate response was to be HOSPITABLE  and WELCOMING by asking him to come to her house. Martha probably had it all planned out what she was going to serve, and how she was going to serve it. 

But that brings me to another good quality of Martha’s!!! She had a SERVANT’S HEART! In verse 40 it mentions twice about her servants heart. Let me show you. 

“...distracted with much serving.” 

“...my sister has left me to serve alone.” 

She obviously loved serving. And if she loved serving, how appropriate that she was serving when Jesus came?? Or was it?? 

Verse 40 also tells us that Martha was RESPECTFUL. “Lord, do you not care...” She recognised her position under Jesus, and pointed out his true title. 

She was also BOLD by telling Jesus what to do. Now remember, we’re are focusing on her good points, not leaning on the bad.  So look at being bold from a good angle. Being bossy bold is not always the way to go, but being bold by telling others what you believe, and standing up for what you believe is a good kind of bold. 

Now while these are all good qualities to have, some of them led her into trouble. That is where Martha, unfortunately, went wrong.