The Comforts Of Home

As I did my study this morning like most days I feel like this book was more than just a gift from two dear friends. It started as a joke at work with me wanting to be like Mary but.....okay.....let's be honest- I'm Martha. I feel like God placed this book in my hand and I thank him dearly. Each lesson seems to open my eyes a little more. I still don't think it's a bad thing to be Martha, all she does, she does with and out of love. Her priorities just get mixed up and in this "mixed up crazy" world we live in how easy it is to do just that. I want so much to do it all, do it right, and do it the best that sometimes I do forget to just be still and spend the time I need with my Father. Sorry today's is so long, I try to give you the parts of each study that touch my life. God Bless! Love, Debbie

The place Mary found at Jesus' feet is the same place available to you and me. It's a place where we can be comfortable, where we can kick off our shoes and let down our hair. It's a place of transparency and vulnerability; a place where we are completely known yet completely loved. It is truly a place called home. If we love him and obey his teachings, Jesus says in John 14:23, God will actually come and live with us. "My Father will love him," he said of those who follow him, "and we will come to him and make our home with him". And it goes both ways. Jesus not only wants to be at home in us; he also wants us to make our home in him. "God wants to be your dwelling place," Max Lucado writes in The Great House of God. What a beautiful, gracious offer from the Lord of hosts. It's hard to imagine saying no to the opportunity to live in God and rest in him. But we can-and so often we do. When we refuse God's offer of grace-filled rest in the Living Room, the only alternative is the tyranny of works-which, as we have seen, doesn't work! We will be driven to do more and more-more service projects, more committee chairmanships, more spiritual extra-curricular activities-trying to win God's approval. And still we will fail, because what the Father really wants is for us to find our identity-our "mailing address" as Lucado puts it-in him and him alone. (From "Having a Mary Heart in a Martha World")