The Balance of Seeking and Serving

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 few things are needed—or indeed only one. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her.”
​Luke 10:38-42 NIV

So, you're sitting in your kitchen, and your friend comes over. You want to be a good hostess so you offer her a cup of something cold to drink. You open the cupboard, grab a clean pitcher and a glass, and start to pour, right? No. First, you have to fill up the pitcher with water, ice, and maybe even some iced tea or drink mix, and then you pour. This is pretty obvious. If you didn't do this, you'd just be giving her a glass of air. So, why do we try to pour ourselves out in serving before we fill ourselves up?

Serving is good. Helping others is good. But, you can spend sixty plus hours of your week serving and helping without spending a minute of time in prayer and in God's Word. Anyone can serve. Anyone can donate money to a good cause, but if we're serving for serving's sake, we're missing the point. 

In the story of Mary and Martha, it says that preparations had to be made. Jesus doesn't say that serving and preparing were bad things to do, He just says that the better thing to do, the best thing to do, was to sit and spend time with Him. Martha was so worried about getting everything done, but don't you think  if she were to sit with Mary and listen to Jesus for awhile, that He would be faithful to help them get everything done? All the preparations would be made, and they wouldn't be embarrassed or lacking as hostesses? After all, he fed thousands with minimal food and had some to spare.

If we serve or help others, we should do it because it's the right thing to do, but we should also do it to point them to Christ and His unconditional love for them. If we're not taking care of ourselves and our spiritual growth, it's going to be really hard to speak truth when the opportunity arises.

On the other hand, if we're filling, filling, filling, without ever trying to pour ourselves out in serving others, we're growing closer to God, but we're missing one of His main points in loving others. We're learning, but not applying. We need to find the balance between serving and seeking.

As you examine your life, here are some questions to ask yourself to see if you are keeping a good balance. Some may be a little difficult to digest, but we need to be honest with ourselves.

1. Look at your week as a whole. How many hours do you spend with the Lord, whether it be on your own or in Christian community, learning and growing? How many hours do you spend serving and doing things? Do these hours balance? Do you have a good life ratio of seeking and serving?
2. Are you willing to forego your time with God, Bible studies, or church on Sunday morning in order to serve somewhere? (Once in awhile is okay, and even necessary, but if the majority of time is your answer, then it may be time for some self-reflection and schedule adjustments).
3. Do you serve simply out of obligation or do you find joy while you serve? This may be an indication that you're filled up and not just running on empty.  By the way, I wouldn't always use tiredness as an indicator of whether or not you're serving too much. Helping with the youth paintball outing? It doesn't matter how the rest of your week went, you're probably going to leave tired. 

​As I'm writing this, we're in the middle of a pandemic and everything is weird right now, but I want to encourage you to not use this as an excuse. Honestly, your balance of serving and seeking may be a little off right now, but take some to examine and see if you can fix it at all, if needed. Stuck at home a lot? Listen to sermons, read your Bible, spend time in prayer. Ready to put some serving back in your life? Start small. Find a simple, uncompromising way to serve yet stay safe and healthy. Trust me, there is somewhere you can serve if you just look!