Sometimes.

What a difficult week I’ve chosen.  You’d think that this lesson would already be behind me by now.  But yet I wrestle.

Seeking & seeing.  Hearing…and sometimes doing.

I guess I just discovered the problem.

Sometimes.  Sometimes my doing can get side-tracked – by incomplete hearing, by personal tendencies slipping up, or simply by distraction.

Perhaps, sometimes, after receiving a direction, I forget to keep rechecking the compass…and then I wonder why the way has become so difficult.

“Where did the peace go?”, I wonder.

The better part.

I keep thinking about Martha and Mary.*  Martha was distracted.  Mary made a choice.  When the Savior came and sat in their home, only one of them paused to enjoy it.  She made a choice to enjoy it.

“Mary has chosen…” Jesus said.

Martha made a choice, too.  She chose to put her skill set to work and busied herself to bless the crowd.  It was a good idea.  But when she realized that peace had left her (“Lord, do you not care?”…”Tell her to help me.”)  this would have been a good time to recheck the compass.

When I’m using my skill sets, but peace has left me (and I begin to accuse God and others around me), that’s a good sign that I missed a good opportunity somewhere along the way to make a better choice.

My eyes might have left the Instruction-Giver and been fixed solely on the instruction.

Or, perhaps, it wasn’t even an instruction at all…it could have just been a good idea, or, merely my tendencies.

Either way, peace is gone and I become hungry for relationship.

Choices.  I can choose.  I can choose relationship, by listening.

“Blessed are those who hear the word of God and keep it.”*

Listening, and re-listening.

Sometimes I let the skill set get in the way.

“One thing is needed.”  “Mary has chosen that good part.”  That ‘one thing’ will always be relationship.

Choices.

Strange how hard that is sometimes.  I wanted all those things this week.  Peace, relationship and good choices…all woven together with my skill set.

I didn’t have it.  I was ‘worried and troubled’, just like this Martha story.

So when peace leaves me, I need to reassign my heart to (i.e. choose) the place at Your feet until I hear Your word for me.

Peace…by reassigning, repositioning, my heart.

Choosing the good part… in other words – obey.  Hear it and keep it.  Whether it is serve, rest, wait, move or speak…I must be in relationship with You through obedience.

Obedience, without relationship, holds no peace.  Nor, vice-versa.

Choosing that good part – relationship and obedience…peace.

I know You know how hard that is.  Thank You for taking the journey with me and being that voice that says, “this is the way, walk in it”.*

* Clicking on *’s will open a new web page providing the indicated reference.