A New Season For the Family

First, a little scripture that seems to reflect my current stage in life:

At the Home of Martha and Mary: Luke 10:38-42

38. As Jesus and his disciples were on their way, he came to a village where a woman named Martha opened her home to him.
39. She had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord's feet listening to what he said.
40. 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!"
41. "Martha, Martha," the Lord answered, "you are worried and upset about many things,
42. but only one thing is needed. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her."

As many of you know, Jaci and I made a decision to leave our church at the end of 2009 after over 8 years of service there. For the last 4 years, we have been involved in serving with and leading the children's ministry at our church for Kindergarten to 5th grade. It was a task that was surely larger than any one person--let alone a part-time employee! There were weeks where we left church absolutely exhausted beyond belief. We often missed church services due to volunteer/staffing issues or situations in the children's services that required our presence.

We got to a point where we put out more than we took in. And that's not to suggest that the Christian life is all about taking from God. It isn't. God calls us to serve and to demonstrate our relationship with Christ, our faith, by our fruit. We're not talking apples and oranges here. We're talking actions and deeds. Our service to God, the way we live our life, the priorities we have and the actions we take each day serve to either validate or nullify our faith. People in the church are always so fond of clinging to the nice-sounding excerpt from scripture in which we are commanded not to "judge others." Oh, we can't judge. That person just murdered someone, but we can't judge him.

That's not exactly what the Bible is referring to. We can't judge people in the sense that we cannot determine whether or not they are worthy of heaven or hell. We can't judge their character or eternal salvation because we don't have all the facts. There is a certain part of each of us that is visible only to God. Only the Lord knows their heart and can say for certainty whether or not they are being condemned to hell or rewarded with eternal life with Christ.

HOWEVER, we are often commanded in scripture to test the fruits of folks. If their fruit stinks, it's a good indication that we need to be careful about how we interact with this person and how much we trust them. A genuine faith in Christ will manifest itself through the actions of that believer. A false faith in Christ can sometimes be hidden from view, but if we look carefully we can see clear signs that their fruit is rotten.

At the same time, in church these days we often have only a handful of folks that do all the work. Many folks think their only responsibility to God is to attend church, live the way they want, and nothing more. They don't serve because they expect someone else to pick up the slack for them.

Our service in church began to get in the way of our walk with the Lord. There were many weeks that I could identify with Martha's pleas to Jesus in Luke 10. "Lord, can't you make these folks help me here? I have too much to do."

Part of that request is born out of a proper frustration. Each person has a part to play and when someone drops the ball it becomes the problem of someone else. As Pastor Andy Stanley put it recently, "your irresponsibility becomes someone else's responsibility." So the Martha's of the church world often do have a very real and valid point of concern in asking for more help.

The Bible even affirms that in Matthew 9:37 where Jesus says that the "harvest is plentiful" but that the "workers are few." There is a genuine need for people to become actively involved in the work that God is doing in their local community and around the world. We need to pray for that need to be met.

There is also the component where you become so involved in what you are doing, so obsessed with giving instead of taking, that you don't even make time for God in your life, other than as a motivation to serve. In other words, your service becomes your number one priority and your God becomes number two.

We aren't so much interested in spending time with Jesus, learning from Him, and seeking to become more like Him and grow in our faith as we are in doing stuff.

In a society that values stuff and busy schedules, that is often easy to mix up. We get so involved in meetings, practices, services, etc that we no longer spend time with the Lord. Serving is part of our worship, but it needs to be a reflection of our personal walk with the Lord. IF we need to sacrifice on our walk with the Lord to keep our current schedule, we need to look for things to cut back.

That seems to be what the Lord is teaching our family right now.

So for the Hughes family as we seek where God will have us go next, this is a season of just resting in Him and learning to be more like Mary and a little less like Martha. We aren't sure yet of where we will end up and what God has for us next. We are in the process of looking for a new place to live as well. We want to make sure that wherever we end up, it is where God wants us to be.

We are still praying about where we will ultimately end up. Jaci and I both feel like God is preparing us for a very large new adventure where we will continue to grow into what He wants us to be.

UPDATED: Thanks to our pal Steph Chambers, I wanted to clarify my position! I believe God comes first, then spouse and kids and then your ministry. I believe our role as husband/wife and parent is the primary ministry entrusted to us by God. When I was talking about God first and service second, I just was pointing out that our service to God shouldn't outrank God Himself, i didn't mean to omit family! Thanks Steph for helping me clarify!