Mary has chosen…

Turn to Jesus, seek out the gospel and be obedient to it as soon as possible

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It has been said that no one on their death bed says “I wish that I had spent more time in the office”. Psalm 90:12 says: “Teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom”. Commentators interpret this verse variously, but in its context, it urges us to understand how quickly time passes and to draw wisdom from that understanding. When we are say, 20, the course of life seems to stretch out before us with time for everything - but when we are 70 we understand that the time has passed swiftly by and we have had, had time for so little. If we have had children they have grown up in the “bat of an eye”, the things that we could do we cannot do so well or so quickly, and maybe some of the things that we wanted to make time for we just didn’t? No wonder the bible says in Ecclesiastes 12:1: ‘Remember your Creator in the days of your youth, before the days of trouble come and the years approach when you will say, “I find no pleasure in them”’… 

We understand that the preacher in Ecclesiastes is urging his audience to make time to find their Creator God, the Father of us all, as soon as possible in their lives. If heeded this appeal means that our lives can be aligned with His purposes from an early age bringing many benefits with it and avoiding the futility that is described throughout the book. The message to those who do not know the Lord is clear – turn to Jesus, seek out the gospel and be obedient to it as soon as possible.

I have reflected on this verse recently myself though, in a similar but slightly different context. My baptismal verse was Psalm 27:14: "Wait on the Lord be of good courage and He shall strengthen your heart; wait I say on the Lord”. I have been conscious through my life since I was baptized when I was 11 of this verse and thought to set time aside for precisely that – to wait on the Lord. I was brought up in the era of Pentecostal “waiting meetings” which then became “receiving meetings” where people would just gather in a room and ask the Lord to baptize them with the Holy Spirit, give them a fresh in-filling, use them in different spiritual gifts or just bask in the Lord’s presence. There was such an expectation and faith for the Holy Spirit to move. As a boy I was quite scared by it because even at a young age I realized this is where people met and did business with God. When people were born again, the next week they were in one of these meetings. They waited until the Holy Spirit was poured into them and they usually spoke in tongues.

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Well, my confession is that this year I have found myself drawn to set some time aside to fulfil my baptismal text. It has been a blessed and revealing experience. First, I was anxious not to waste the time I had but the Lord reassured me that He had only been waiting for me to “turn up” – so that was a great relief. Then I started to realize that I didn’t know how to “wait on the Lord”. I was conscious that I was responding to another verse in Psalm 27 (verse 8): When You said, “Seek My face,” My heart said to You, “Your face, Lord, I will seek”… but I discovered that I didn’t know “how” to do it. This wasn’t apparent to me at first, but the deeper I started to go with the Lord, the more I realised how much everything flows from Him. The link with our starting verse is that I found myself saying to the Lord “Jesus I am sorry that I have waited this long in my life to set aside this kind of time for You”. Don’t get me wrong; I have had quiet times when the Lord has spoken to me (although I am not really a good and faithful prayer warrior and one of my prayers is “Lord teach me to pray”) and He has often revealed Himself in scripture in wonderful ways. In setting time aside to be with Jesus though I have become conscious that I have missed out on this for a long time – in any reckoning about “numbering my days” this had not been a high enough priority.

Clearly Mary learned this quickly. Here is the well-known story from Luke 10: As Jesus and his disciples went on their way, he came to a village where a woman named Martha welcomed him in her home. She had a sister named Mary, who sat down at the feet of the Lord and listened to his teaching. Martha was upset over all the work she had to do, so she came and said, “Lord, don't you care that my sister has left me to do all the work by myself? Tell her to come and help me!” The Lord answered her, “Martha, Martha! You are worried and troubled over so many things, but just one is needed. Mary has chosen the right thing, and it will not be taken away from her.”

Bible scholars again have some debate about the exact meaning of parts of the original text and make a number of connections. Its clear though that Mary had chosen something that Jesus approved of. So much so that He protected her choice – “it will not be taken away from her”. She attracted criticism from Martha who saw her role in the people who had to be fed and cared for – also possibly because in the culture she was ignoring what was “expected” of her being a woman of that time and place. She had chosen as the scholars say the “best portion” (links to Benjamin’s portion from Genesis 43:34) which has I think at least three components:

• Dedication – to ignore all and everyone else and spend time on the one thing that was needed
• Intimacy and submission – to sit in the presence of Jesus at His feet
• Learning – she listened to Jesus

“Teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom” – I wonder what we will think to ourselves when we meet Jesus? “I wish that in my time on earth I had spent more time………. “? 

Author: Chris Pearson

May God bless and enrich your life

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