Made Like Marthaናሙና

Letting Go

Martha seemed to work first, then relax afterward. She probably waited until the task was done and then sat down to enjoy those around her. Maybe she, like me, had yet to learn how to really enjoy people’s company while completing a line item. Maybe she, like me, had yet to learn how to rest within, secure in her position as a dear daughter of God. 

It is a good thing to be reliable, but there is a sneaky shift that can happen from being responsible to putting ourselves in charge of things that aren’t ours to manage. Even as I do and serve, out of the way God created me, I need to lay down the things that aren’t mine and trust God to work as He sees fit.

When you stop trying to fix everyone and everything around you, you begin to experience joy and peace in a deeper way. God may ask you to carry heavy things at times, but let’s not pick up things that weren’t meant for our shoulders. Jesus’s shoulders are able to withstand the weight of the world. He cares for and leads us with unconditional, unending love. When we enter into covenant with Him—meaning a loving and abiding relationship with Him, through faith in who He is and what He has done—He promises to provide us with what we need. Jesus takes on our debt, our insufficiency, all that we lack. 

When my doing becomes a way to act independently of Christ, erecting walls around my heart, it is often because I have a skewed view of who He is. I think I know better than God does. I don’t dare say it out loud, but my actions communicate, “I know what should be done in this situation. I know what’s best. If I only say or do this, then these people will see the light and change their behavior according to what I want them to do.”

But there is one Sovereign who reigns over all, one named El Roi, the God Who Sees. My doing can never replace His Sovereignty, His wisdom, His way of making things right. He calls us to join Him in what He is already doing, not use our actions to try to control Him according to our limited understanding.

In what ways do you sometimes try to control God?