One Thing is Needed to End Stress (Part 1)

I had a dream on January 18, 2019, in which my father (who died from cancer in 2011) walked up to me wearing a tuxedo.  He looked amazing and about 30 years old. He asked me to join him for supper that night and I told him that I couldn’t and we decided to meet the following night instead.  In my dream, I reached out with both hands and grabbed his upper arms and I remember he felt very solid, tall, muscular...very healthy. I was confused in the dream. Thoughts were going through my mind like, “I feel like I haven’t seen you in years” and I also had thoughts of, “Wait a minute, aren’t you sick?  But you look so well!  Why haven’t I been spending time with you if you are sick?” I couldn’t quite seem to grasp the concept of time in my mind as I talked with him. He handed me a piece of paper in the dream and said that I needed to go watch this video from one of my favorite pastors.  

The next day when I woke up, I remembered the dream pretty vividly, which is not like me at all.  I couldn’t remember the name of the video exactly but knew it was something like One Thing You Need to Know.  So I searched the ministry’s site and found a video One Thing is Needed.

This title comes from the famous story of Martha and Mary.  Martha has invited Jesus to her home for a meal and while she is “overly occupied and too busy” her sister Mary sits at Jesus’ feet and listens to His teaching.  Martha says to Jesus, “Master, don’t you care that my sister has abandoned the kitchen to me? Tell her to lend me a hand.”

Many sermons have been given on this story in Scripture. Some of us feel Martha’s pain.  She’s got a house full of people at mealtime. She’s probably busy trying to make a special meal for a large group of people and keep an ear on the conversation so she doesn’t miss out on all of Jesus’ travel stories, miracle moments and life-giving teachings.  The practical side of things says that these people are going to want to eat and she wouldn’t be a very good hostess if she didn’t have food prepared for them!

Jesus replies to Martha saying, “Martha, Martha, you are anxious and troubled about many things.  Mary has discovered the one thing most important by choosing to sit at my feet. She is undistracted, and I won’t take this privilege from her.”

Jesus didn’t come to visit Martha’s house every day so I’m sure she wanted to make her best dish for him, the one that got her all the rave reviews at the neighborhood picnic.  But Mary saw it differently. She thought, “Jesus doesn’t come to our house every day. I’m not going to miss this opportunity to visit with Him. We can worry about food later.”  This would have been a good day to just order a pizza to make it easy on the hostess.  

You see Martha was trying to fit Jesus in around all her activities that she thought she needed to do and this made her anxious and troubled.  Mary stopped everything and made Jesus the priority and fit her schedule around her time with Him.  

King David understood this.  In Psalm 27:4 he says, “One thing have I asked of the Lord, that will I seek, inquire for, and [insistently] require: that I may dwell in the house of the Lord [in His presence] all the days of my life, to behold and gaze upon the beauty [the sweet attractiveness and the delightful loveliness] of the Lord and to meditate, consider, and inquire in His temple.”

If there was only one thing you could ask God for, what would it be?  You could pull a Solomon and ask for wisdom. But I like David’s one thing better.  Apparently God likes it too. He calls King David a man after His own heart.  

God tells us, “Seek My face [inquire for and require My presence as your vital need].”  And David responds, “My heart says to You, Your face (Your presence), Lord, will I seek, inquire for, and require [of necessity and on the authority of Your Word].”

Do you require the presence of the Lord in your daily life or is He an afterthought?  Is He a vital need in your life that you are seeking with all your might? That doesn’t sound like someone who has a quick 5 minute devotional read in the morning and doesn't think of Him again.  That doesn’t sound like someone who reads one chapter in their Bible each day out of routine. That doesn’t sound like someone who skips church because they don't feel like going this week and have a lot of things to do.

On the authority of the Word of the Living God, won’t you determine today to have just ONE THING as your highest priority?  On its authority won't you believe that it could just the very thing your anxious and troubled soul needs to finally find rest?  The presence of God, time at His feet, soaking in life itself is the one thing you need to end stress.

We’ll keep this conversation going in the next couple of blogs to come...stay tuned.

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