³⁸ Now as they were traveling along, He entered a village; and a woman named Martha welcomed Him into her home. ³⁹ She had a sister called Mary, who was seated at the Lord’s feet, listening to His word. ⁴⁰ But Martha was distracted with ^[a]all her preparations; and she came up to Him and said, “Lord, do You not care that my sister has left me to do all the serving alone? Then tell her to help me.”⁴¹ But the Lord answered and said to her, “Martha, Martha, you are worried and bothered about so many things; ⁴² but only one thing is necessary, for Mary has chosen the good part, which shall not be taken away from her.”  (Luke 10:38-42 NASB)

I am a Martha.

Let me put a finer point on it.

I am a Steven Covey reading, Zig Ziglar listening, Tony Robbins Personal Power II owning Martha.

Goals? Responsibilities? Affirmations? Identified. Discerned. Verbalized.

In the words of the lay philosopher Larry the Cable Guy, git-r-dun.

So this passage from Luke is a convicting one.

And God made sure, as though to get it through my thick skull, that my journey to SWU was not the product of my getting things done at all.

For that, only one thing was necessary.

Britt and I worked together at Charleston Southern University for five years. I got the gig straight out of grad school in 2011, and Britt joined me a year later. Here we were: married Christian academics in the same discipline with full-time jobs at the same Christian institution.

But Britt was increasingly unhappy, for good reason, at CSU, and so for a couple of years I made it my personal responsibility to get another job that would reshuffle the cards so as to get us a winning hand. I consulted Britt. I even deigned to consult God, especially after submitting an application and while I waited for a response.

But Jesus was simply in my house. I wasn’t at his feet.

There was too much do.

I mean, I was serving, wasn’t I? Trying to do right by my wife?

Lot of good it did me.

I submitted applications to schools in the upstate and low country. No dice.

I remember sending one inquiry about a job opening at 7pm and checking my email for a response approximately 632 times over the next 24 hours. I received a response at 8pm the next night: the posted opening had been filled. I remember feeling acutely what it must mean to meditate on God’s law day and night as the Psalmist says. The only problem? I was meditating on the ins and outs of an application I didn’t even need to submit.

And then it was May 2017. Our daughter was about to turn two, and childcare for the next school year was going to be considerably more difficult to manage than it had the year before. Britt’s disenchantment with our former employer had reached peak levels, and so once again I donned the Martha-mantle to help get her out of dodge.

As I started my search, I was pleased to find an opening in the upstate: a literature position North Greenville. Britt hails from Fountain Inn, and her parents still live there in the house she grew up in. This part of the state is where we wanted to end up. As always, I talked over the opportunity with Britt, but as I prayed about what to do this time around, I felt convicted. I took the time to sit at Christ’s feet.

The message I heard was clear: before I applied for a job myself, there had to be a job that Britt could apply for in the same geographical area.

I was having better luck going to the HR pages for individual schools than I was using open position aggregators, so soon I consulted a list of universities in the upstate. It was there that I discovered a school I had never heard of called Southern Wesleyan, and lo and behold, they had an open English position!

Now when you’re looking for a job as an English professor, you get used to throwing an application out to any gig that reasonably matches what you have done or could do.

But this was different. The Southern Wesleyan job description, a program coordinator with duties that including helping lead a writing across the curriculum initiative, couldn’t have been more clearly written for Britt if someone had tried.

She applied in mid-June.

While I heard crickets from North Greenville, Britt got an interview just a few weeks after submitting the application and by early July had the job. A furnished house to rent in Pendleton, an Easley daycare for Cat, and a more amenable fall schedule thanks to a kind new colleague were confirmations that God was with Britt and Cat as they moved here in August 2017.

All of these answers to prayer had one thing in common: I didn’t make a single blessed one of them happen. Little old me with my to do lists and daily affirmations and roles and goals hadn’t actually been able to help Britt leave CSU. Her own skills, and God’s providential grace, had done that just fine.

I had a lot of time to ruminate on the irony of my Martha-ness. While Britt was getting her feet under her here at SWU, I was teaching four courses at Charleston Southern and commuting up on the weekends. There was lots of time for reflection.

And that leads me to the crucial truth about Martha.

It’s not the work that’s wrong. It’s not giving Jesus a good meal that’s wrong. It’s not the hospitality that’s wrong.

Or to make it more personally applicable. It’s not the to do lists that are wrong. It’s not the goals and the David Allen Getting Things Done flowchart I work through to evaluate my day that are wrong.

It’s the distraction. It’s the way that Martha gets lost in what she’s doing and forgets why she’s doing it. It’s that Martha’s first impulse when she sees Mary is to passive-aggressively blame her; “Jesus, get her to help me.”

God knew how to answer our prayers. He knew that it was much more important for Britt to seek and find a place that valued her than it was for me to be the one to what…to save her?

All you need to know about how I got to SWU is that I’m here because she’s here. I needed to learn to follow.

One of the best parts of this semester for me has been Monday and Wednesday mornings when Britt and I get to sit together in chapel. While SWU chapel at its best can be like sitting at the feet of Jesus, more often than not I feel that old Martha itch, the nervous glance at the smartphone, the mental list of activities I could be getting done instead of spending time in Newton Hobson worshiping or listening.

But only one thing is necessary.

I have found out that if I honor God by making time with Him a priority, I have time to finish my other tasks. If I’m humble enough to be Mary, I get to be Martha as a bonus. If instead, I fall back on ingrained habits and play Martha, I do more than miss Mary: I miss Jesus.

This morning I encourage you to find out where you can sit at Christ’s feet.

Don’t spend all your time on your lessons or grading, only to forget the students who will hear the lesson and who generated the work you’re assessing in the first place.

Don’t sweat over the meal, only to miss spending time with the one who occasioned it.

Only one thing is necessary.