{"id":6749,"date":"2014-03-16T01:00:55","date_gmt":"2014-03-16T05:00:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/allandouglas.dougbittinger.com\/blog\/?p=6749"},"modified":"2025-04-21T01:56:40","modified_gmt":"2025-04-21T05:56:40","slug":"martha-mary","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/martha-mary\/","title":{"rendered":"MARTHA AND MARY"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Calvin<\/a>The dishes were rattling noisily in the kitchen.\u00a0 Martha was getting frustrated.\u00a0 At first she only talked to herself.\u00a0 It was a joy to cook for Jesus.\u00a0 He was complimentary of her meals.\u00a0 Although He did not say much His frequent visits indicated something was to His liking.\u00a0 Maybe she was a little too sensitive in thinking Mary was not doing her part of the work.\u00a0 “She will surely come to the kitchen shortly to do her usual chores,” Martha thought.\u00a0 But she did not come.\u00a0 More mealtime preparation noise did not seem to produce the desired effects.\u00a0 Finally, Martha blurted out, “Lord do you not care that my sister has left me to do the work by myself?\u00a0 Please tell her to help me.”<\/p>\n

The Lord fixed His eyes on Martha.\u00a0 He studied her mood to determine the depth of her anger.\u00a0 He looked at Mary, who seemed a bit embarrassed by Martha’s outburst.\u00a0 He did not want to sound unappreciative, but the situation was obviously a teaching opportunity.\u00a0 He wanted to calm her frustration by giving her a lesson on priorities.<\/p>\n

There must have been a bit of pain in His voice as He said, “Martha, Martha, you are worried about many things.\u00a0 Your kitchen duties have possessed you.\u00a0 Your meal is more important to you than my fellowship.\u00a0 You have chosen to feed me.\u00a0 Mary has chosen to let me feed her.\u00a0 She has made the better choice because physical food is for the moment while spiritual food is forever.”<\/p>\n

Like Martha, we sometimes get preoccupied with important things, but in the process neglect the most important thing.\u00a0 There is nothing more essential to our earthly existence than a healthy hunger for God.\u00a0 To crave conversation with the Master is the key to unlock our spiritual personality.\u00a0 Unless we have fellowship with Him we may never survive the busyness of life. The Christian life is a matter of priorities.\u00a0 The “less than best” is always sacrificed for the best.\u00a0 Somewhere along life’s journey we want to hear Him say that we have chosen the good thing that cannot be taken away from us.\u00a0 It is a matter of living close enough to Him to say, “Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The dishes were rattling noisily in the kitchen.  Martha was getting frustrated.  At first she only talked to herself.  It was a joy to cook for Jesus.  He was complimentary of her meals.  Although He did not say much His frequent visits indicated something was to His liking.  Maybe she was a little too sensitive … Continue reading “MARTHA AND MARY”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[55],"tags":[58],"class_list":["post-6749","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-matters-of-faith","tag-relationships"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6749","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6749"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6749\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19152,"href":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6749\/revisions\/19152"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6749"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6749"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6749"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}