Look at yourself as Martha.

Your apartment is located just down street on Luke  10:38 avenue, you stay with your identical twin Sister    Mary.

As Jesus passes by one morning, You two open up  your home for him. He is your guest.

Your twin sister chooses the best option; she sits in   the living room listening to Jesus. But you, you are too preoccupied with the rice and the cabbage that you see no time to sit in that couch and listen to him. Somehow though, the New Testament guys record your reaction this way.

“But Martha was distracted by all the preparations that had to be made. She came to him and asked, “Lord, don’t you care that my sister has left me to do the work by myself? Tell her to help me!”

“Martha, Martha,” the Lord 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 10:38-42.

Your sister Mary chose what is better – Sitting quiet to listen to the Lord.
But you? no, the cabbage needed more time. You had to prepare that juice.

Aren’t we are all modern day Marthas? Especially in this festive season? God is here with us but we are too busy to listen. Our lives are surrounded, surrounded, surrounded.

Surrounded by deadlines, gatherings, and voices. We hardly sit down and stay quiet to be with Immanuel – God with us.

Maybe that’s why we like Like Martha are caught up in Christmas commotion of the Kitchen.

Isn’t this what Rob Bell the author of “Velvet Elvis” means when he writes?

“Why is silence so hard to deal with? Why is it so much easier for us to live our lives with a lot of things going on all the time that to just be in silence? We’re constantly surrounded with “voices” that are influencing us on how to think, feel, and behave. Movies, music, TV, Internet, cell phones, and a never-ending barrage of advertising…

… There’s always something going on, always noise in our lives. But maybe there’s a connection between the amount of noise in our lives and our inability to hear God. If God sometimes feels distant to us, maybe it’s not because he’s not talking to us, but simply because we aren’t really listening.”

I am  sometimes a slave to noise. It sometimes eats away a loads of time I could have spent soaked in God’s truth, praying over texts or just being still in solitude.

That’s why am not surprised that after marathon weeks without “quiet with God’s word,” I struggle with anxiety, temptation, and discouragement.

This Christmas, we celebrate the birth of Jesus. God is amidst us. His name is “Immanuel”. Hebrew for “Immanu” meaning “with us” and “el” meaning “God.”

He is here with us, Involved, ready to talk through his word (as he has always done) – maybe what we need is to just slow down and listen. Perhaps what we really need is more time to be muted in his word as the year ends. Moments alone when visiting grandma in the village could do.

A walk alone through that silent neighborhood won’t hurt. You may as well hum some “Silent night.”

Just make sure you are not caught up in Martha’s “Christmas Commotion of the kitchen.”