Luke 10:38-42
Jesus at the Home of Martha and Mary
38 As Jesus and his disciples were on their way, he came to a village where a woman named Martha opened her home to him. 39 She had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord's feet listening to what he said. 40 But Martha was distracted by all the preparations that had to be made. She came to him and asked, "Lord, don't you care that my sister has left me to do the work by myself? Tell her to help me!"
41"Martha, Martha," the Lord answered, "you are worried and upset about many things, 42 but only one thing is needed. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her."
Life seems to be a paradox to Jesus' teachings...If we dedicate our lives just to a career and to making a good salary, we then are trying to make money, maybe to buy a car and a house...And making money can lead to selfishness, the wanting and buying of material things and the pursuit of what is the next thing to purchase that I might want...The result then happens to be that we are constantly chasing the next purchase and material thing that might give us pleasure in life...Constant work can leave us worried and upset about many things...
Many of us have worked hard to have a nice retirement...A good retirement is not a bad thing, unless we forget what the true treasures are in life...Too much focus on work and keeping busy and distract our faith...Faith becomes less important if our focus is on our career, job, and good retirement...We just might forget what Jesus teaches...
Listening to and believing and following Jesus seems to be the good life and what we need in this life...Jesus tells Martha this...Our faith needs to be with our job and our work, and the other things that keep us busy...But it is difficult to stay focused on Jesus, when one works everyday and is busied away by stress and what needs to be done...So when Jesus tells Martha (while she is working) that Mary has done and chosen what is better by listening to Him, we can believe this, because first He said it, and second of all we can see how busy we can get which makes us take our mind and our faith off of Him...