Becoming Like Martha: Women Who Take God at His WordSample

Becoming Like Martha

We’ve all faced seasons where we feel stuck—stuck in old sin patterns, stuck in hard circumstances, stuck in a tired pattern of negative thoughts. Like Martha in Luke 10, we can operate under a whirl of worry, too caught up in our heads to recognize God’s radically good invitation to come and rest in Him.

The beauty of the Gospel is that it reaches us where we are but never leaves us there. As Christ broke into Martha’s normal, everyday life with an invitation to come, so He does with each of us. He invites us to die to old ways of thinking, old ways of being, and live transformed under the new life He offers.

Will we, like Martha, let His words stop us in our tracks? Will we, like Martha, allow Him to redirect us? Will we, like Martha, be teachable in His hands?

When we do, we’ll be changed. The peace of God that defies understanding will be ours in Christ Jesus so that we, like Martha, can stand in the middle of devastation with hope on our lips. There is no other refuge for life’s hardships than the rock of Jesus Christ. There is no other hope for our desperately dusty souls. He alone can lift us up.

What happens when God meets a woman in the middle of her mess and changes her? She longs to serve Him in love. She longs to pour herself out for His sake. She longs to move and act and think and be from the overflow of a life made new.

Let’s become like Martha. Let’s be women of faith who learn from their mistakes, take the living God at His word, and serve with joyful hearts at rest in the promises of God.

Ponder: Is God drawing you out of something and to Himself? Pause to respond to His good invitation.

Pray: Abba, help me be teachable, trusting, and faithful like Martha. Empower me by Your Spirit to abandon my pride, surrender my understanding, and run hard after You. Amen.

Read more about Martha in the author’s fictional account of her life in Up from Dust: Martha’s Story. Click here to learn more.