One Thing

Poor Martha. She was frantically trying to prepare some food for the Lord. There was Jesus, and Mary was sitting in rapt attention at His feet, soaking up every word. But instead of being touched by that or joining her, Martha became angry. She wanted the Lord to reprimand her sister.

Here is what Jesus essentially told her: “Martha, Martha. I appreciate the effort. But there is a time to work and a time to worship. There is a time to get out and do things, and there is a time to sit at My feet. Mary figured it out. Why don’t you do the same thing?”

That’s an interesting phrase to follow through the Bible: “one thing.” David used it in the Old Testament when he said, “One thing I have desired of the Lord, that will I seek: that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the Lord, and to inquire in His temple” (Psalm 27:4).

The apostle Paul said, “One thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead, I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 3:13–14).

For David, that one thing was fellowship with God and His people. For Mary, that one thing was sitting at the feet of Jesus. And for Paul, that one thing was moving forward spiritually.

In the same way, we should be sitting at His feet like Mary. We should be fellowshipping with God and His people like David. We should be moving forward spiritually like Paul. If we don’t focus on that one thing, we will end up doing everything and accomplishing nothing. We can spend our days in a flurry of activity and never reach the goals that God has set for our lives.