Will you be a Mary or a Martha?

My 7th Kairos experience has begun and I am extremely excited about meeting up with Jesus at this special time.  One always returns to serve on Kairos because it proves to be a special time for them as well as for the ones whom they are serving.  It is easy to think we are bringing something to the residents of the prisons and its true we are bringing many things to them out of love, but what is just as true is that we are also taking away from the experience.  What we receive in return for our service can never be taken from us and it keeps us coming back. 

The word Kairos means God’s Special time. It is not a chronological time but it is a unique moment in time.  It is not accidental nor coincidental, though it may seem so on the surface but its an appointed time with the Lord, where He touches us in ways that leave us changed as we may have not imagined.  Even though this is my 7th weekend I truly believe that this will be a significant time spent with Him in my own life.  I have had many life changing moments with the Lord and would trade none of them because in each, He makes me more like Him.  Those times are sweet moments away from the routine of life.  You know, like the times you are with your lover and you long for time together to last forever.  Sometimes, they are planned and other times they just happen making them even sweeter.

Martha was caught up in the routine of life as she was concerned with dinner preparations and all the things she had ahead of her to do. She had many tasks which consumed her focus and caused her worry.  She fussed (expressed all kinds of emotions) at her sister Mary and at the Lord while they took time to be together.  The Lord explained to her that, what Mary had chosen was the best and it could not be taken from her.  Even though there were many preparations for what was to come, the Lord could easily handle feeding however many came for dinner that day (because He had quickly and easily fed 5000 people with little to no preparation).  He is aware that there is a great deal of work to do when preparing for and serving on a Kairos weekend and He is equally aware of how easily we can choose to be like Martha.  How aware are we of being like Martha or Mary and who do we choose to be like??

We went through the routine of a first Kairos meeting covering the details outlined by the riverbanks and as a result of the explanation to the first timers of what agape is, there was a quick, by the way, testimony of how a man who was serving on a team was preparing his agape letters for the weekend and his small daughter wanted to help, so he allowed her to write her own note on one of the letters he was writing. She simply wrote the words “God loves you, I love you and I am ok and signed her name”.  The planned weekend was cancelled and the letter was not used until a year later.  The man who received the letter was an angry unbeliever who was not really participating in the weekend, at least until he read that particular letter.  God had used it to touch him in a way no one else could. The man’s small daughter with the same name as the girl who’d written the note was killed by a drunk driver many years prior.  He ended up becoming born again and being changed through his Kairos weekend.

I was disappointed at the job I was given to do for lots of reasons, too many to name and frankly most are unimportant, but what I can tell you is, the disappointment hurt.  It seemed to me that He was unconcerned with the desires of my heart and about what was important to me (sounds a little like Martha).  But as I recalled this story and thought about how the Lord took a specific little girl, to write a specific note, to a specific man and it didn’t get lost or forgotten in a year’s time, that He was well aware of my circumstances and of the desires of my heart.  I decided I would not be focused on the tasks that I was asked or not asked to do.   I am a servant and the servant does not have her own agenda – only that which the Master has decided she should do and do it to my utmost out of love for Him. I want to be like Mary.  I want to sit with my Friend/Lover and gaze at Him to hear what He has to say to me.  I want to know Him well, to trust Him with my heart, so I can be trusted with His. I want ‘be’ with the Him rather then ‘do’ for Him on this Kairos, because I believe it will be a special time for us.  I trust He can handle all the preparations (things we can’t do or things we don’t know about).  Just as He was not worried about the tasks ahead, He knew what had to be done and by when in order for it to be ready in time, when Martha fussed at Him.  He told her that Mary had chosen what was best and that it would not be taken away.  It is the same with our Kairos #12.

Kairos is like Jesus and we can choose to be Martha focused on things other then Jesus or we can be like Mary who takes a ‘special’ moment out of routine to sit at the feet of Him who loves us.