At Your Feet

Sunday morning retuning: What was your take-away from the time with John and Darlene Sunday?

Last week I challenged the choir with this idea of staying at Jesus feet. You remember the story of Mary and Martha from Luke 10:38-42. Martha is scurrying around working and Mary is sitting at the Lord’s feet. Jesus gently teaches Martha that Mary has chosen the one needful thing. But how do we live and do the things that are a part of living and yet stay at Jesus feet? How do we stay at His feet and stay a step behind Him? This is easier said than done.

Pastor Myron challenged our elders in the spring with these words from Psalm 27:4.

“One thing I ask from the LORD,
this only do I seek:
that I may dwell in the house of the LORD
all the days of my life,
to gaze on the beauty of the LORD
and to seek him in his temple.”

I am very literal thinker and so I can struggle with phrases like this in Scripture. Really Lord, I am supposed to ask for one thing. Like Mary, the one thing is to worship, but notice that it has different verbs used to describe it: dwell, gaze, seek. Both active and passive words. Words that require different degrees of activity to be sure, but activity nonetheless. I need to stay at His feet,

This thought is echoed in the song that we began to sing together Sunday. Here is a link for those of you who may not have been there to sing it with us. At Your Feet Even as we sang the words to this song below I was struck again by those words “be a holy fragrance in this sanctuary”. It requires us to translate this idea of the temple/sanctuary to our understanding of our being the reservoir of the Holy Spirit. It helps to flesh out this idea of living our lives as an act of worship, for we do not have to go to a sanctuary, we are the sanctuary.

I can be Martha and Mary and the same time. Does that make sense? Hear me out.

Certainly there are times when I need to be mostly Mary, with a little Martha, and other times when I need to be Martha but I better always keep some of that Mary posture in mind. In other words, I can worship as I work, and I must also work at my worship. I can stay at Jesus feet while I am engaged in a myriad of other pursuits as life requires them.

I do not have to stop worshipping to go and do other things. In fact, I had better not do that. As we continue to learn this song, I pray Jesus will teach us how to live it out every day.

Jesus, show us how to stay at Your feet. Teach us what that looks like. Help us to dwell, gaze and seek well as we live in You.

In Christ,

Pastor Timothy