Where's the Focus?

I have had so many things on my mind lately I am not sure where to begin.

This morning our sermon was on faith or more more general, where is your focus?  You know we all try to live a good moral life and probably follow the "golden rule"  We all like to "do unto others as we would have them do unto us", or do we.  There is a lot of gossip we participate in but get upset when we are the FOCUS of the gossip.  We all want to win a million dollars but get upset when someone we deem as "undeserving" gets the lucky break and becomes the FOCUS of the millions.

Take a look at Mary and Martha from Luke 10: 38-42.  Martha was busy making things ready for Jesus' visit. Cooking, cleaning, being a good hostess.  She was doing all the work and Mary was doing nothing.  She was just sitting there.  It is no wonder Martha got upset.  It was not fair.  Why should she get stuck doing all the manual labor while Mary gets to enjoy the company?  I bet we all feel that way at times.  I know I do.  I feel  like no one does anything and it is up to me.  As parents, we run ourselves ragged trying to get our children to all the different events and activities the have going on, including church activities and work and your spouses activities.  Sometimes, it can be very taxing on a person to feel like all that pressure is on them.  All this pressure and stress can leave us stressed out, depressed, filled with anxiety, frustrated and overwhelmed and leave energy to take care of ourselves.

In James 2:8, we learn that we need to love our neighbors as we love ourselves.  The problem is, if we are so stressed, anxious, frustrated and overwhelmed and possibly even down right miserable, how can we love or take care of ourselves.  If we can't take care of ourselves and we don't love ourselves, we are not going to truly love others.

In Martha's case, she was so busy taking care of the house, trying to please everyone that she forgot her focus should have been on Jesus who was sitting in her living room.  She didn't stop to spend time with the Lord, sit as His feet and listen to his teachings.  She was upset and even asked Jesus to tell Mary to help her since Mary was sitting at the feet of Jesus listening to what He was saying.  She was not concerned about the food that needed cooked or the bathroom that needed cleaned or the clothes that needed washed.  She was only concerned with what was right there in front of her. She was fulfilling her spiritual need because the opportunity was right there, the rest will still be there later. Even Jesus told Martha that she was worried and trouble about many things, but only one thing was needed and Mary has chosen that and he would not take that from here.

I tend to be a Martha in my marriage.  I am so busy trying to fix things, making things right, making sure the bills get paid that sometimes I forget to be the wife God has called me to be.  Because I am so busy trying to fix everything, I don't always allow my husband to be who God has called him to be.  And because I am such a busy body about so many things, I don't take time for myself very much.  I have been trying to loose 50 lbs since January 2011.  I did well, lost about 15 lbs then gained it back.  Last May, I started again with a picture if myself in a bathing suit and this blog and a determination to loose the weight.  Again, I gained it back.  This past January, I started for the third time.  To date,  have see-sawed between loosing 21-28 lbs. I have definitely made progress but the journey continues.

I am learning to love the new me. It is excited to put on smaller clothes.  I still have set backs, but it is easier to re-focus my energy because not only am I changing physically, I am growing spiritually.  I am learning to love me and take care of myself. I spend more time than every before sitting at the feet of my Lord and He is helping me to let go of somethings and allow Him to take care of it.  It is liberating and scary all at the same time.

So ask yourself, where is your focus? Is your focus  on you and how you can fix things or on how will Jesus allow you to work through things? Do you have the faith to allow Jesus to lead you out of the Martha mentality and into a Mary moment?