Life can be very complicated! In fact, many of us feel like a rat on a treadmill with no exit strategy. At the end of each day, we complain, wish that it could be different, drop into bed exhausted, get up the next day and repeat the process. Does it have to be that way? An interaction between Jesus and Martha provides amazing insight into how faulty beliefs can impede our capacity to receive the fulness of blessings that God wishes us to have:
As Jesus and the disciples continued on their way to Jerusalem, they came to a certain village where a woman named Martha welcomed him into her home. Her sister, Mary, sat at the Lord’s feet, listening to what he taught. But Martha was distracted by the big dinner she was preparing. She came to Jesus and said, “Lord, doesn’t it seem unfair to you that my sister just sits here while I do all the work? Tell her to come and help me.”
But the Lord said to her, “My dear Martha, you are worried and upset over all these details! There is only one thing worth being concerned about. Mary has discovered it, and it will not be taken away from her” (Luke 10:38-42 NLT).
Acknowledging Faulty Beliefs
Many times, throughout my adult life, I have felt like a rat on a treadmill but justified my frustration with a feeble excuse, “I was born with a Type A personality, have an overdeveloped sense of responsibility, and there is nothing that I can do about it.” In a further attempt to assuage my pain, I have noted, “On the positive side, it has helped me to become an overachiever!” However, truthfully, I identified with Martha and on many occasions felt that God was treating me unfairly. Always, in the depths of my soul, I knew the problem rested with me, not God.
Reforming Faulty Beliefs
Ultimately, anyone who chooses, even for noble reasons, to play the role of “superman” or “superwoman” will hit the wall because we are not machines. Even though I had faced this dilemma before, my longtime role as a caregiver to my precious wife Linda, exacerbated by the reality of aging, forced me to reform my faulty beliefs. Interestingly, much like Martha, I did not hear Jesus berating me. Rather, I heard his tenderness coming forth in terms of an analogy: In the spring of 2017, God very clearly impressed upon my heart: “I love Linda more than you do. She is mine, and you are to entrust her to me.” More recently, I heard: “I love you more than Linda does. You are mine, and you are to entrust yourself to me.”
Enjoying Fulness of Blessings
One week ago today, overwhelmed with the great needs confronting me and desperately hurting as I see Linda slipping away, I began my prayers as I usually do, “My Father…” Almost instantly, I remembered a great biblical truth that I learned long ago, but often fail to apply:
So you have not received a spirit that makes you fearful slaves. Instead, you received God’s Spirit when he adopted you as his own children. Now we call him, “Abba, Father.” For his Spirit joins with our spirit to affirm that we are God’s children (Romans 8:15,16 NLT).
Referring to this portion of scripture, French L. Arrington, the most published New Testament scholar in my denomination, notes: “…the Holy Spirit touches the spirit of believers and testifies to them that they are sons and daughters of God, working in them as an inner voice in their minds. Believers do not have to wait until they get to heaven to know who they are.”
Abba, the Aramaic word highlighted here is used three times in the New Testament. It corresponds to our usage of “Daddy,” and in Jesus’ time was used by small children when addressing their earthly fathers. In the Garden of Gethsemane, in His time of unfathomable distress, Jesus looked back to His childhood and used this word of great intimacy when approaching His heavenly Father. When writing to the Galatians, Paul emphasized that God sent the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, enabling us to call out, “Abba, Father.” Therefore, in our times of need, we should always remember that we have not received a spirit that makes us fearful slaves. Rather, we have the remarkable privilege of freely emulating the example of Jesus and crying out, “Abba, Father.”
Amazingly, what began as my desire to tell my heavenly Father of my need and receive His provision and comfort, in the space of an hour, turned into the most intimate spiritual encounter of my lifetime, as I freely exercised my right to call the Creator of the Universe, “Daddy Father.”
Ron Harvard Ministries 