Telling Jesus what to Do

 

Have you ever said something, and as soon as your words were spoken out loud, they didn’t sound like the words that you were just thinking in your head?  And then you wish that you could just reel those words back into your mouth, but you just couldn’t?  I think that’s how Martha felt when she blew up at Mary and Jesus.  Jesus had come to visit the home of Mary, Martha, and Lazarus, and Martha was stuck in the kitchen.  And she was mad!  Martha thought, “Mary knows that we have a whole house full of hungry men and there she is just sitting listening to Jesus.”  Of course, Martha would have loved to have stopped and listened to Jesus too, but the meal wouldn’t fix itself.  So Martha lost her temper and spoke her mind.  But when her words came out of her mouth, somehow, they didn’t quite sound like she had thought that they would.  In Luke 10:40, Martha told Jesus, of all people, what to say.  Martha told Jesus to “…bid her (Mary) therefore that she help me.”  Can you imagine someone telling Jesus what to do?!  Martha told Jesus to tell Mary to get into the kitchen and to get busy… right now!  Hey, I’m like that sometimes.  Sometimes I tell God what to do, but in a kind way.  I pray, “Dear God, please help Miss So-and-so to get well,” when God is trying to teach Miss So-and-so to depend upon Him for her health.  Or I pray, “Dear Lord, help Brother Who-do-you-call-him to get the job that he interviewed for,” when the dear Lord is trying to teach Brother Who-do-you-call-him to depend upon God and not on his paycheck.  But of course, you aren’t like that, are you?  You never tell God what to do.  Or do you?  We all need to say to Jesus, “Not my will, but Thine be done.”  Let’s not box God in.  Let’s not tell the Creator of the Universe what to do.  After all, He’s doing a pretty good job running things without our help.