Now as they went on their way, Jesus entered a village. And a woman named Martha welcomed him into her house. And she had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord's feet and listened to his teaching. But Martha was distracted with much serving. And she went up to him and said, “Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to serve alone? Tell her then to help me.” But the Lord answered her, “Martha, Martha, you are anxious and troubled about many things, but one thing is necessary. Mary has chosen the good portion, which will not be taken away from her.”
~ Luke 10:38-42

I want to be a Mary, but I'm worried about what others think of me while they are about doing. I want to be a Mary, but I feel lazy. I want to be a Mary, but I struggle to sit and listen. I can sit, no problem. But listen, that's work.

So is Mary's job harder, or is Martha's?

God, I want to know Your Word, so I'm going to join an inductive Bible study.

I'm so busy underlining and cross-referencing that I barely have time to digest His Word.

God, I want to learn who You want me to be, so I'm going to be part of a six-week mentoring program for young women.

I'm so busy reading the lesson and doing the homework - and cooking the weekly recipe to get extra points with the mentors - that I don't have time to search my heart.

God, I want to sit in Your presence and be with You.

I'm so busy chasing anxious thoughts away that I can't dwell with my Lord.

I have spent most of my life thinking about what others think of me - what I do or don't do, and even what they think of my quiet time, that I've had little room left for what God thinks of me.

In Sharon Garlough Brown's book, Sensible Shoes (which I recommend highly, by the way - more on that to come), she describes a dream of a character named Hannah, who is an exhausted pastor on forced sabbatical. Hannah, as a little girl, is joyfully picking flowers and laying them at Jesus' feet, running back to pick more flowers, laying them before Jesus, and running back and forth, back and forth. Finally, Jesus tells her, "Hannah, thank you for the flowers, but I just want to be with you."

Our God doesn't need us to read through the Bible in a year. He doesn't need us to pray through the Bible. He doesn't need our efforts to do what we think He wants. He just wants us. Anything less than ourselves, raw and unadorned before Him, is idolatry. I'm not saying to jump ship on your Bible study or Scripture memory plan. They are good, very good things for us. But they are only good when understood that they are meant to draw us into the presence of Christ. They are a tool to help us sit at His feet, gazing into His face, soaking up every Word He has for us. Nothing less than Jesus Himself.

That is the good portion.

"Put on then, as God's chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness,  humility, meekness,  and patience, bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive."
Colossians 3:12-13

I'm in a small group mentoring program for young women called Apples of Gold. Last week's lesson was on kindness. Most people, when they are first meeting or getting to know me, think I'm kind, or at least "nice." I'm a good actress, apparently.

Kindness is not niceness. Kindness is an attitude that looks for ways to serve others, whether that be through words, actions, or the absence thereof.

My biggest area of struggle with the character of kindness is in "venting." "Venting" is a nice little term Christians have coined to make gossip seem acceptable. Now, there is a valid place for me to share my relational struggles and challenges with my husband or a very close friend because I know it's not going anywhere and it helps to release the tension built up inside. But constant "venting" to anyone and everyone who may share my sentiments is called gossip. And that is not kind.

My heart is bitter, and it is not at peace. One of the beautiful mentors in Apples of Gold, Mary, taught on kindness at our meeting last night. She said the root of kindness is being at peace with God, self, and others. Light bulb moment! While I feel I am at peace with God, at least in the sense that I know I am forgiven and the channel of communication is open, most of the time I do not feel at peace with myself and therefore cannot feel at peace with others.

There it is. I have also been able to fool people for an unusually long amount of time that I am a peaceful person. Again, not true. In order to be at peace with myself, I have to be absolutely confident in who I am in Christ and in the personality and unique gifts and purpose He has given me. I also have to forgive myself. I'm one of those people who tends to relive all the stupid and shameful things I've done repeatedly instead of allowing God to remove them once and for all from my record. So all of the times I've blown up in anger or all of the times I've gossiped often play through my mind as I'm approaching a potentially uncomfortable situation with a friend or coworker. No peace there.

Oh, God, give me peace. I want to have that inner calm that allows kindness to take root and flow out through me. Help me to know Your peace and remember the kindness You have shown to me when I encounter conflict or hurt. May Your Spirit's fruit grow deep and blossom exponentially in my soul so that beauty and delight is what others see in me. I want to display kindness, not so others can praise my character, but so they will praise the character of my God. Give me a heart at peace.

By wisdom a house is built, and by understanding it is established.
Proverbs 24:13

My husband and I just moved into our new house on Tuesday! (Thus the lack of blog posts recently, compounded by our trip to Boyne Highlands for skiing last weekend.) It took the movers a brief 8.5 hours to pack up all our stuff from the apartment, go to my parents' house to pick up the stuff they kept in storage for me, and unpack everything at our house. Yikes.

Today was the first day we could both commit to several solid hours of unpacking. I started with my beautiful kitchen, which now has a pile of boxes that reminds me of the barricade in Les Mis. And that's only half the boxes I have to unpack.

Although I didn't have time to unpack after work Wednesday afternoon because of choir practice that evening, I did take the hour I had to hang and place our photos and plaques and decor like that. It added a little something in a short time.

The former Philippine missionary and his wife who married us gave us a plaque for our wedding, and I hung it right next to the front door. It quotes Proverbs 24:13 in pretty scrolling letters, and it reminds my husband and me that the foundation of our home is not dependent on how efficient or entertaining we can make it. Instead, we seek wisdom on how to build up each other and understanding on how to establish our family.

The word "establish" has a couple definitions. The simplest is "to set up." To me, I don't really picture "setting up" my family. I can picture "setting up" house, which is exactly what we're working on now, but you can't really "set up" your children.

Another definition for establish seems more applicable to me when I think of my home and family: "to achieve permanent recognition or status for." I want my family to be known, not for our beauty or talent or cleanliness, but for how we proclaim Christ! Randell and I want our home to be established as a place of peace, joy, and love, a place that when people walk across our doorstep, they sense the presence of God, and they want to know more.

As we establish our home, we seek wisdom and understanding directly from the source: God's Word. In Psalm 127, He tells us, "Unless the Lord builds the house, the builders labor in vain." And Psalm 128 says the man who fears the Lord will not only be blessed himself, but his wife and children will be fruitful as well. That is the kind of home for which we pray.

Look out for the dogs, look out for the evildoers, look out for those who mutilate the flesh. For we are the circumcision, who worship by the Spirit of God and glory in Christ Jesus and put no confidence in the flesh—though I myself have reason for confidence in the flesh also. If anyone else thinks he has reason for confidence in the flesh, I have more: circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee; as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to righteousness under the law, blameless.
Philippians 3:2-6

For the first 15 years of my life, I thought I was great, a model Christian. Hmph. I was judgmental and hypocritical.

But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith—that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead.
Philippians 3:7-11

At age 15 I began experimenting with things that I knew would be harmful to me. For the next two years, I struggled with an addiction that I hid from my family, my friends, and my God. I wanted to quit, but I was incapable. I didn't have the power. I was dead. Then Christ resurrected me and vested me with the power to overcome. I confessed my sin to Him, to my parents, and even to the president of Cornerstone University because I was violating the lifestyle covenant I signed as a student. I received some counseling, and over the next few years I healed, by the grace and power of God.

Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. Let those of us who are mature think this way, and if in anything you think otherwise, God will reveal that also to you. Only let us hold true to what we have attained.
Philippians 3:12-16

I didn't understand grace until that moment I confessed my sin. I received so much forgiveness from God, my parents, and Joe Stowell. It was an overwhelming flood of grace. When I think about it, I just want to run around with a giant bucket full of grace and pour it out on everybody. It's so hard to keep that mindset, though.

I still battle self-righteousness, which is of the devil, but I live in grace now, the grace of God for me and for those around me who sin against me or others. I press on to make the prize of Christ-likeness my own because He made me His own. There is nothing and no one more beautiful than Christ when you've been forgiven much, no one I'd rather emulate.

Brothers, join in imitating me, and keep your eyes on those who walk according to the example you have in us. For many, of whom I have often told you and now tell you even with tears, walk as enemies of the cross of Christ. Their end is destruction, their god is their belly, and they glory in their shame, with minds set on earthly things. But our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body, by the power that enables him even to subject all things to himself.
Philippians 3:17-21

It is easy to focus on earthly things because that is what is tangibly present around us all the time. But when you wake up each morning with the mindset, "This is not my home," you begin longing and pining for that place where you will be fully realized, fully alive, fully you. Home. Grace is the only thing that brings us Home.

Fight the good fight of the faith. Take hold of the eternal life to which you were called and about which you made the good confession in the presence of many witnesses.
1 Timothy 6:12

My spiritual life lately has consisted of CCM in the car; convicting reminders from coworkers that I need to pray for persecuted Christians and people who are suffering, not just that I can make it through the day; and a realization that I'm no longer participating in the SSMT because I'm off Facebook for Lent and therefore getting no notifications.

That was one sentence, by the way. Gotta love the semicolon.

I'm not happy where I am. But I'm comfortable, and I was afraid it would take something very uncomfortable to budge me from this position, which has actually happened.

The other day a friend emailed me to ask about my future plans, so I spilled the beans about my hopes and dreams for this blog and how God might use my gifts, etc. etc. She replied back, "Faith, I celebrate you and the calling God has placed on you."

That made me feel warm and cold at the same time. Warm because, well, isn't that nice she appreciates what I'm doing? Cold because I'm not taking my calling seriously enough. Shivers, really. Shivers in my conscience.

One can't teach without knowing her material. One can't encourage without having been encouraged. One can't love without sitting at the feet of Love.

That One is me. Yes, there's grace because I'm moving in six short days and have been traveling to various ski areas and marriage conferences on the weekends and rehearsing for musicals and concerts and trying to maintain friendships while working part-time and attempting to eat healthy and work out regularly. Sense the stress?

But if I am to take up this responsibility, whether one reads this blog or 101 read it, I must saturate myself in God's Word and presence. Worship music, however biblical, is not a substitute for improvised, real-time conversation with, waiting for, listening to, learning from the Source of Truth.

I'm in a busy season, but I'm never too busy to pray.

It's funny how I just posted a vlog about how God equips us when He calls us, and I am now feeling very unequipped. The key is this: You can't use your tools if you don't take them from the one who is handing them to you. God's hands are open, overflowing with blessings and power to bestow on each of us when we undertake something in His Name. I need to reach out and take hold of what God wants for me.