For the last two weeks I have felt the
strong need to spend a greater amount of time with God. Over and over
again, He has confirmed this intuition. In an unrelated conversation,
one of my teammates reminded me of one of the phrases we’ve heard
often over the last few months—”lovers will always outdo doers.”
The idea behind that is that great love will increase your desire to
help or “do” more-so than just the urge to “do” will.
Sometimes, especially on this trip, 
I have felt like if I’m not
“doing” something, I’m not being used—I’m wasting time. Sure,
there have been points where that’s true, but spending time with
Christ—in prayer, reading scripture, in fellowship (or edifying
conversations), in fasting, etc—does not fall into that same
category.
I’ve been reading through the gospels
for a few weeks now. I will admit, I am very unfamiliar with them. In
the past, I have hit the birth of Jesus and thought to myself, “I’ve
heard this story a thousand times”–so I get bored and move to a
different book of the Bible. So I have been diligently moving through
them now—trying to gather up all of the information that I can.
Last week I was reading through Luke 10 and verses 38-42 really stood
out to me. It’s where Jesus goes to Martha and Mary’s home. Martha
gets upset that Mary is just sitting at Jesus feet—seemingly doing
nothing—while she is busy preparing things. Jesus gently rebukes
Martha—He basically tells her that her priorities are out of whack.
He says, “Mary has chosen what is better (v. 42).” To Jesus, the
Son of God, spending time with him is more important that doing
things for him.
I have
a few podcasts on my iPod, but I rarely listen to them, and don’t
really remember what they’re about. They are from Mars Hill Church in
Michigan where Rob Bell is the pastor. 
The same afternoon that I read
that scripture, for reasons I didn’t know at the time, I felt
prompted to listen to a sermon called “Lift a Finger.”
Incidentally, a portion of his message was on that same
scripture—more confirmation to be with
God.
I noticed a
bookmark I’ve had for years—one of those things you get so used to
seeing that you no longer pay attention to what’s written on it. But
I read it, and it clicked—”It is work that God does through us
that counts, not what we do for Him. All that our Lord heeds in a
man’s life is the relationship of worth to His Father. He puts His
saints in the most useless places. God puts His saints where they
will glorify Him. And we are no judges at all of where that is (My
Utmost for His Highest by Oswald Chambers).”
Several other
things have confirmed the very same concept to me—more scriptures,
songs that I haven’t listened to in ages, conversations with people I
rarely talk to, etc.
God
has been speaking to me, and it hasn’t been as “still & quiet”
as I’ve been used to. He wants me to be prepared for something big;
He wants me to have my priorities straight and honor him with being,
not necessarily doing.
It is hard! It is especially hard knowing that I have people around
the world wondering what I’ve been “doing.” Thank you for
allowing me this time to be with
my Savior.
*I actually wrote this before I left for the beach, but the internet went down, and this was the first opportunity I’ve had to post it.
