But Martha was distracted with much serving. And she went up to him and said, “Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to serve alone? Tell her then to help me.” But the Lord answered her, “Martha, Martha, you are anxious and troubled about many things, but one thing is necessary. Mary has chosen the good portion, which will not be taken away from her.” 
Luke 10:40-42

This well-loved passage has many of us chuckling, as we consider ourselves a bit more like a Martha than a Mary. But our fondness for the story may cause us to miss the reason Luke included it. He alone could have recalled from firsthand experience as he accompanied Paul, how a life of service could be thrown off track by busyness. Martha was in many ways a lot like Paul. She loved Jesus with all her heart and didn’t care what anyone else thought about her faith. Remember it was Martha who invited Jesus over in the first place. Yet somewhere in the middle of her determination to serve Jesus, Martha began to lose focus. With her house filled with disciples, servants and even a few curious neighbors, she forgot that the whole occasion was supposed to be about Jesus. In the midst of our serving, sometimes you and I, like Martha, also forget who the most important person in the house is!

There are other times we get caught in the “service trap”, because of the expectations of others. As Pastor Rick Warren once famously said, “God loves you, and everyone else has a wonderful plan for your life!” We mean to take time for prayer and reading God’s word, but the phone rings, a text message grabs our attention, or we decide to check our Facebook page, just one more time. Little by little our day is eaten away by distractions, and the Holy Spirit’s voice is drowned out by the banging of our own pots and pans. With our hours consumed by serving, it is easy to miss out on taking time for the only one who really knows what we should do.

Last of all, while Martha asked for Jesus to pay attention to her needs and feelings, Mary just sat at HIs feet, with her eyes on Him. When we allow our serving to overwhelm us, we may elicit sympathy from others or even cause them to jump in to give us a hand, but we lose our chance to point to Jesus. But when, like Mary we give our complete attention to Him, then we can begin again to draw others to look to Him, because He is the most important person in the room!