My wife teases me about my penchant for thinking back to what I was doing this time a week ago. “This time a week ago we were…” I often say.
“Why do you do that?” she asks.
“I have a sense for history,” I tell her, but she knows I don’t know why I do that.
I even do it for a year ago: “This time a year ago, we were…”
Ahh, this time a year ago I was looking into a brand new year: 2020. I expected it to be much like the previous one, a year where I went to the same office on the same days, dined at the same restaurants, shopped at the same stores, went on vacation to a place we had planned the year before.
This time a year ago, I certainly wasn’t expecting the unexpected: I now work from my home office, for the most part; we rarely dine out, do most of our shopping online, and take advantage of pick-up service for groceries. As for that pre-planned vacation, it never happened. Most of my resolutions for last year didn’t apply to the year at all. Today, I’m not about to resolve anything based on expectations for 2021.
That is, except for one. That one has to do with something I learned from Mary and Martha, the sisters in the Bible, Lazarus’s siblings.
Jesus went to their home and sat down to teach. Mary was right there at Jesus’ feet, soaking in his every word. Meanwhile, Martha was in the kitchen, preparing dinner.
Martha got upset because Mary was not in the kitchen, too. So, she complained to Jesus, “Lord, don’t you care that my sister has left me to do the work by myself? Tell her to help me!”
“Martha, Martha,” Jesus answered, “You are worried and upset about many things, but only one thing is needed. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her” [Luke 10:40 42].
Was something wrong with Martha cooking in the kitchen? No, of course not, except that she was so preoccupied with what she was doing that she didn’t realize that God was in her living room.
So, here’s my one goal, my only resolution, my main objective this year: I’m going to do my best to get out of the kitchen and to the feet of Jesus. That’s my one thing.
I’ll have to spend time in the kitchen, no doubt; I’ll have to be Martha, some of the time. Work in the kitchen pays the bills and puts food on the table; some of life’s greatest joys and contributions come from laboring in the kitchen.
But I intend to keep my eye directed over there, in that quiet place where I like to sit and ponder. And even when life knocks me against the wall, I will try and remember that Jesus is in the whirlwind too, in those awful, cataclysmic events that cascade on us like a waterfall from nowhere.
I’ll also attempt to keep in mind that Jesus is not only with me in moments of “sudden danger,” but also in the mundane routines, the ones recurring over and over— passing by us unnoticed—like that cat sneaking across your backyard in the dark of the night.
The kitchen isn’t, in fact, a particular place; it’s more of a preoccupation, a focus on ourselves and the exaltation of what we are doing at any given moment. The kitchen is a place where we become so immersed in our duties that we ignore the God who is in the moment, the God who has given us that very moment as his gift to us. It’s a place where we swim in our plans for another day, forgetting that life happens while we’re making plans.
So, just maybe, instead of struggling to get out of the kitchen this year, I’ll expect the unexpected; I’ll relax there in the kitchen, resting in the beautiful possibility that Jesus might show up there, as well.