“Now it happened as they went that He entered a certain village; and a certain woman named Martha welcomed Him into her house. And she had a sister called Mary, who also sat at Jesus’ feet and heard His word. But Martha was distracted with much serving, and she approached Him and said, ‘Lord, do You not care that my sister has left me to serve alone? Therefore tell her to help me.’ And Jesus answered and said to her, ‘Martha, Martha, you are worried and troubled about many things. But one thing is needed, and Mary has chosen that good part, which will not be taken away from her’” (Luke 10:38-42).
I was still living with my parents when Ryan and I started dating. He lived about an hour and fifteen minutes away. I realize many people have lived farther from each other and also didn’t have the luxury of telephones or email to communicate. But lucky for us we did. Every evening I would get on the computer chat. For those of you who have never used chat, it is a feature similar to texting or emailing. The program we used listed the various names of people I’d chatted with and it would put a green dot next to the name of anyone who was sitting at their computer. I would wait with anticipation to see that green dot come up on his name. I was often impatient… where is he… why isn’t he home yet so he can talk to me? And THEN the moment his green dot did appear the butterflies that were residing in my stomach fairly popped out of my ears and swirled about my head. Truly, there wasn’t a moment of my day that I did not want to be with him.
What if we could “chat” with Jesus? Let’s say by a miracle of the Holy Spirit, Jesus was available to chat with each person individually whenever we wanted. Would I wake up extra early to talk with Him? I was reading something the other day about a man who would get up at 4am each morning to have two hours of devotional time. Maybe instead of eating lunch, I would get on chat with Jesus? Jesus said, “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God” (Matthew 4:4). Would I rush home from work eat a quick sandwich and get back on chat with Jesus? Ryan and I sometimes talked until two or so in the morning. How late would I talk with Jesus?
You want to spend time with the people you love. Maybe you are like me and you’re saying, “I want to love Jesus like that but I don’t know how!” The more time I spent with Ryan the more time I wanted to be with him. The same is true for our relationship with God. The more time we spend in prayer and Bible study learning about who Jesus is the more our hearts will desire to be with Him. “And you will seek Me and find Me, when you search for Me with all your heart” (Jeremiah 29:13). Let us all be like Mary at the feet of Jesus instead of allowing temporal worries and busyness to drive a wedge between us and our Creator. So the next time you are tempted to skip devotional time because of one reason or another think about Jesus waiting for you to come and chat. The greatest thing is that He is just as excited to see our green dot come on as we are to see His.