High Stress People

Like that, don't you? You can just feel the pressure in your shoulders and a tension headache coming on and before long you to see the stress and the tension rising through the day. I want to begin a series of messages this morning on the subject of stress. I'm entitling this series, Peaceful Living in a High Stress World. I anticipate 13 messages in this series. Let me give you an outline of where we're headed. The first four messages, I want to deal with understanding stress. And we're going to see how stress relates to four different areas of our lives. First of all, how stress relates to our personality. Secondly, how stress relates to our thinking. Thirdly, to our feelings. And fourthly, how stress relates to burnout. And then the last nine messages, I want us to deal with biblical principles that will enable us to deal properly with stress. We're going to deal with these nine principles, the principles of God's enablement, of proper relationships, of priorities, of perspective, of motivation, time management, Sabbath rest, boundaries, and then the principle of slowing. And I trust that God will use our discussion and time in His Word to help us understand how to deal with some of the tensions and stresses of life that we all face. I want to admit from the very beginning, I don't have this all down. In fact, I probably need this series of messages as much if not more so than anyone in this room. So I'm looking forward to being in the Word as well. We will use, especially in these first four messages, illustrations from the Word of God. And then we will use this from the Bible that help us see what we're talking about by way of stress. This morning, I want to talk about stress and personality, how our personalities lead toward stress. In fact, I think there is one personality type that is more prone to stress than any other. And that personality type is probably best illustrated in the Scriptures with a woman named Martha. Her story is found in Luke 10. So I invite your attention to Luke 10 verses 38 to 42 where we find a story of a personality type of a woman who was stressed out over all things, of all things, a visit by Jesus Christ to her home. Verse 38 says, as Jesus and His disciples were on their way, He came to a village where a woman named Martha opened her home to Him. The setting is in Bethany, a little village, two miles outside of Jerusalem. It's the home of Martha and Mary and Lazarus. It's a home where Jesus felt comfortable. They were close friends of His. It's a home where Jesus felt He could rest where no one would ask Him to do a miracle or ask Him a trick question to try to trap Him in His answer. He knew that He could rest there. He could relax there. He could be at peace there. And so quite often in the Gospels, you'll find that when Jesus is in the area, He stops for a visit. He stays at the home of Mary and Martha and Lazarus. And this is such a visit. He and His disciples are in the area ministering. So they stop for a visit at the home of Mary and Martha and Lazarus. What we find in this story, what happens that day as both of these sisters in their own way welcome Him into their home. Both of them from hearts of love, welcoming Jesus but in very different ways. Both of them teach us great lessons about the subject of stress. Both of them show different personalities as they relate to what was probably an unexpected visit on the part of the Lord Jesus in their home. I want us to look at first of all at the character Mary. We're going to look at each of these characters one by one and just see what they have to teach us. Mary is actually the first one introduced in verse 39 that anything is said about her. Martha has been mentioned in verse 38. But in verse 39, we find that she had a sister called Mary who sat at the Lord's feet listening to what He said. Now let me describe these women and Jesus with one word descriptions. There are three one word descriptions that come to mind when you read this verse about Mary. The first one is the word sitting. The Bible says here that she sat at the Lord's feet. Now that may seem insignificant until you realize that sitting in the Bible in the New Testament in particular is the common posture of a disciple. It is the posture of one who wants to learn from a master, from a teacher. You sit at the feet of the one that you want to be taught by. And so there's a sense in which this posture of Mary sitting at the feet of Jesus shows her devotion to Him that she is waiting for something to learn. She is devoted to Him. She is worshipping Him. It's interesting to me that Mary of Bethany has found three times in the Gospels and each time she is at the feet of Jesus. In this occasion, the second occasion is at the death of her brother Lazarus. And when Jesus finally comes to the scene after Lazarus has been dead four days, the Bible says that Mary ran out to meet Him and fell at His feet and said, Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. But she is waiting for a response from Him. She is doing that worshipping Him. And so she is at the feet of Jesus. She falls at His feet and says, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. The third occasion where we see Mary in the New Testament is in John chapter 12 and verse 3, where it is said that Mary took about a pint of pure nard, an expensive perfume. She poured it on Jesus' feet and wiped His feet with her hair. Again, she kneels at the feet of Jesus. She is at His feet. And the house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume. The scriptures say. So every time we find Mary, she finds her way to the feet of Christ. She is sitting at His feet here in Luke chapter 10, worshipping Him, waiting to hear from Him, eager for His teaching, taking the posture of a disciple, a learner, one who is submissive to His authority. She is sitting. Secondly, the next word that I think is important about her is also mentioned in verse 39. The word listening. She said at the Lord's feet, listening to what He said. In other words, listening to His Word, being fed from what Jesus would say. And I think what Mary shows us here is that in the hustle and bustle of everyday life, we need to pause to sit at the feet of Jesus and listen to His Word. We talk quite often here at this church about personal devotions and time with the Lord, either in prayer or in Bible study or Bible reading. I think it's very important that we develop the kind of spiritual disciplines that we regularly have time with Jesus in His Word. We sit at His feet and we listen to Him. The problem is that in the hustle and bustle and stress of life, one of the first things that goes by the wayside is our time with Jesus. We have a tendency to think we've got so much to do today. We've got so many activities, so many things on our to-do list that we've got to get to them right now and we just jump over that time with the Lord Jesus. And we fail to realize that time sitting at Jesus' feet, listening to His Word, is the fuel that enables us to live well and to serve Him well. And so she was listening. She was sitting at Jesus' feet. She was listening to Him speak, listening to His Word. The third word that I think that describes Mary is the word serving and you might want to put a question mark by that word if you're jotting in that word in your notes, serving. It's not really apparent in the NIV translation of verse 39. She had a sister called Mary who sat at the Lord's feet, listening to what He said. If you have a King James version that says something like this, who also sat at Jesus' feet. If you have a New American standard, it says who more over sat at Jesus' feet. The idea is that she was not only sitting at Jesus' feet, but she was spending some time at Jesus' feet. I think the implication of this text is that she was serving, but she was also seated at Jesus' feet, listening to His Word. Which means that she would go in and help a little bit in the kitchen, stick something on a burner, get together a few dishes, and then as she took them out to the dining room, she would sit for a while at Jesus' feet and listen to what He had to say, and then she would go back into the kitchen. Well, I think that's the scene that you have here in these verses. And certainly God wants us to have a balance between serving and activity and listening and worshiping. There's a balance between those two. We cannot withdraw from society to always be in Jesus' presence, reading His Word and studying His Word. But we dare not fill our lives with so much activity that we neglect time at Jesus' feet either. So I think Mary pictures for us a proper balance as we go through this series, I think we will see that it is the kind of balance that the Word of God expects of us and that will help us to deal with life in a stressful world. Mary is a good example of how to have the proper balance in life. So Mary was sitting, she was listening, she was serving. But then we come to Martha. I want to spend the most time on her this morning because she's the personality type that we need to look at that really has a problem with high stress. She is a high stress person. And it really comes out in this story. In verse 40 this is what we have said about Martha. 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. Now Martha is a personality type that is especially susceptible to stress. And it really comes out clearly in what she does here and her responses to this situation. There are four words that I think describe her. The first one is busy. Martha is busy. You see the response of these two women to Jesus visit to their home is very instructive. Mary sees the Lord Jesus come and she says, oh the master, I want to spend time with him. Martha sees him come and she says, oh the meal, I need to get it ready. There's a fundamental difference in the way they see things. The first priority of Mary is to be with Jesus. The first priority of Martha is the work that needs to be done. I got to get things ready and she jumps into action. She swings into action and starts what the text says here, all the preparations that had to be made, that indicates she was going to be busy. There are all these preparations that have to be made and she's very keenly aware of that. And so she swings into action. Now her motivation is great. I think this is the way Martha probably expresses best her love for Christ is in her busyness, her service, her activity and she wants to make sure that the meal is good, that it's top notch, that the table is clean, that the table settings are just right. And so she's got a lot to do to get all the preparations made for this meal. But that's her way of showing love for Christ. We're going to see later that the Lord understands that. He's very gracious with her. Mary's response is a little different. And I think, and I want to talk about this for a few moments now, I think it all goes back to the difference in those two women and their personalities. I think Ken Gyer in his wonderful work, intimate moments with the Savior has captured very well the difference between Martha and Mary when he says this about them. Martha so eager to serve, energetic, first to roll up her sleeves and pitch in to help, last to leave until every dish is cleaned and put away up early, first at the market, haggles to get the best prices to the point, sometimes even abrupt. The yokes of the eggs she serves for breakfast are never broken. The fruit she sets out in a wooden bowl on the table is always fresh and sweet. Dinner is never overcooked, the perfect hostess that's Martha. Mary? Well, she's up about 30 minutes later. Sometimes goes with her sister to the market, but more often than not doesn't. The haggling bothers her. Wikes to cook doesn't like to clean up the mess. Perceptive asks few but thoughtful questions is a good listener, sensitive and calm. I think Ken Gyer's put his finger on something here and that is that one of the most fundamental differences in these two women is not that one of them loves the Lord more than the other, they just have different ways of expressing it because their personalities are very, very different. I think Martha is one of the best biblical examples of the kind of personality type that today would be called obsessive compulsive. Now some of you have heard those terms, some of you haven't. For this series of messages you might want to become familiar with what that means. Some of you are going to recognize yourself as the same kind of personality type that Martha was. Let me describe for just a moment the meaning of those terms. Obsessive compulsive, it's a term that psychologists and psychiatrists today use for a certain personality type and way of responding to things. The term obsessive means a particular thought that is repeated over and over and over again till it becomes lodged in your mind and becomes a natural way of thinking. People who are obsessive have a tendency to fall into certain ruts of thinking that they've developed over time and they think that way, they respond that way almost inevitably. It has become natural to them. Then the compulsive side of this kicks in to be compulsive means a frequently repeated behavior pattern as a result of that obsession. You're obsessed with a certain way of thinking and you frequently act in the same ways over and over again, repeated behavior patterns. That's what obsessive compulsive is all about. In their fine book, Dr. Frank Minerth and Dr. Paul Meyer who are Christian psychiatrists and Dallas also teach at Dallas Theological Seminary, they're fine book before burnout. They have described some characteristics of obsessive compulsive people. I want to explain to you what they are. I'm not going to give you the whole list. The list is 129 items long, characteristics of these kind of folks, but I want to give you a few of them and some of you are going to recognize yourself. You are obsessive compulsive if you figure out a numbering system for almost everything from wardrobe planning to your collection of music or books or coins or mugs. If you've got things organized just so and it's all categorized and number just right, you're probably obsessive compulsive. Second characteristic, you are probably obsessive compulsive if you take intensive notes in your devotional time and you're especially obsessive compulsive. If you go back and reread those under kind of a guilt thing, I've got to reread them so I'll make sure I remember what I learned in my devotions two weeks ago. You are probably obsessive compulsive when you averaged more than 40 pages of class notes for every high school college and graduate school class you took. You're especially obsessive compulsive if you then type them up. You're probably obsessive compulsive if you make intensive lists of things to do. You're especially obsessive compulsive if you categorize all those lists on three by five cards and a little file folder or put them in separate files on your computer. You are probably obsessive compulsive if you want to name your children alphabetically from oldest to youngest and you're especially obsessive compulsive if you want to alliterate all their names. Adam, Alan, April, Amber. You want to do that. You're probably obsessive compulsive. You are probably obsessive compulsive if you go shopping with your wife and as she puts things in the cart you immediately start reorganizing them. You're probably this personality type. You're probably obsessive compulsive if you frequently pat your hip pocket to make sure your wallet is still there. You're probably this way if you make to-do lists for every day, twenty things on the list. You complete 19 out of 20 of them but you kick yourself at night because you didn't get to 20th when done. You're probably this personality type. You're probably like Martha. You're probably this obsessive compulsive type personality. If you spend way too much time on a task because it has to be done perfectly or if you take on way too many tasks because you know if it's going to be done right you got to do it yourself. You're probably this kind of personality type. You're probably obsessive compulsive if you are very time conscious. You're frequently checking your watch even on your day off. You're checking your calendar all the time. Your daytime or trying to squeeze as many things into your to-do list to get as much done in as little time as possible. Your favorite book is probably the book, One Minute Manager. If those characteristics seem to fit your personality type you're probably a lot like Martha. I think Martha is a classic biblical example of that kind of personality type which we call today obsessive compulsive. Now I want to hasten to say that these people are not weird. We really aren't. We're not really weird. Some of these people, some of these people are very conscientious. They're highly motivated. They're very dutiful. They're obedient. They're hard working their self-sacrificing. They can be very well organized but they tend to carry it to an extreme which leads to high stress, which leads to a lot of stress in their lives that really doesn't need to be there. If they will learn to respond as Jesus talks to Martha about, we'll see in a few moments, they can learn to reduce the stress level in their lives. These kind of personality types like Martha are very, very busy and they've got to do lists for every day that are a mile long and they want to get it all done or they feel bad about their day. That's the way Martha was and that's the way a lot of these folks are. Not bad people but just a little overbalanced in the area of busyness. She was busy. All the preparations that had to be made. The characteristic that I think is described here of Martha in verse 40 is that she was distracted. In fact, the text uses that very word but Martha was distracted by all the preparations that had to be made. See it wasn't just the preparations that were bad, it was the distraction of those preparations. She had gotten all nervous and preoccupied by all of those arrangements for the meal. So she's bustling back and forth and realizes all of the things that need to be done. I can almost see it exactly like it happened. She starts realizing Jesus is here. I want a nice meal for him so she starts rummaging through the cupboards to find out what she can cook. And then she goes to get the silverware and some of it looks a little spotted. It hasn't gone through the dishwasher real well and so she has to clean that up. And then she realizes, I don't think I even dust it off the dining room table. So she gets in there dust off the dining room table and she realizes I didn't sweep the floor today and so she sweeps and just on and on it goes. She becomes distracted by all that has to be done. And you can just feel the stress and anxiety, intention rising in her heart. And you say, John, you're reading a lot into the text. No, I'm not. You're going to see in a moment she responds exactly like most of us do in that same situation. With all the distractions of the busyness of what she has to do and she's thinking of more and more things, you know, again, we have different terms for it today. We call it adult attention deficit disorder. You know, when you're thinking about the silverware that needs to be done, then you remember the table needs to be done, then you remember the floor needs to be done. All the food needs to be cooked, but it's the biblical term is just distracted. She was distracted by all the preparations that had to be made. Now there are lots of ways that we can become distracted. Obsessive compulsive people are typically perfectionists and so they become distracted by any mistake they make, a very simple mistake like misplacing your car keys or making a mistake in the checkbook becomes a real big deal and you get all distracted by those things. You get upset by those things. This type of personality like Martha usually has a meticulous concern for detail and so you're unable or unwilling to relax because there's always something else to be done. And she sees Jesus coming, she cannot think of sitting still at his feet. She's got to get things done and the more she does, the more she realizes needs to be done. And so she becomes, as the scriptures say, distracted by all the preparations that had to be done. This personality type will spend more time organizing to do something than it takes to do it. That's where the list making tendency comes in. I just suspect I can relate to Martha. I think probably the first thing she did was she went into her kitchen, got a pencil and piece of paper out and made a list of all that needed to be done in order to get the meal ready and then she'll follow that list. She probably took more time organizing things than actually it would take to do it. That's a tendency of the distraction of this personality type. This personality type will tend to put more emphasis on projects than people, to exactly what Martha is doing. But Lord Jesus is in her house and she is more concerned about the meal than she is the master. She's more concerned about the soup than she is the savior. Projects more than people, the one for whom they are done often gets left behind. So she's distracted. Just imagine her, just read a little between the lines here, distracted with all the preparations you can just see her going back and forth from kitchen to dining room. Take a look at her working in the kitchen and you can see that there's more heating up in there than the oven. She's getting very distracted with all the preparations that have to be made. That leads me to the third word that describes her perfectly. Her high stress type of personality and that is the word angry. Angry. Look at what it says, they're in verse 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. Exclamation point. Now she's angry. She is distracted with all the busyness and she's getting hotter and hotter as she comes into the dining room from the kitchen and sees Mary sitting there. When there's all this work that has to be done, she's getting hotter and hotter until finally she explodes out of the kitchen, red faced, comes up to the Lord Jesus and says, Lord don't you care. I know she's mad because she doesn't say Mary. She says, my sister. You know what it's like when you're mad? Your daughter, that wife of mine, that husband, those kinds of things are evidences of anger. She's angry. She is so angry that she rebukes the Lord. Can you imagine that? Lord don't you care. And I can just sense the anger in her voice. If you find yourself a lot like Martha, you're going to find yourself getting angry when you become distracted with busyness, it will lead to anger against others and even anger against the Lord. You'll be angry at others who you feel are not pulling their weight and you may even be angry at God for letting it happen. You'll be angry where Martha was or if you're like Martha, you'll be angry because these people are getting in the way of your plans and you're to do list and your time constraints. Now, I don't know about you but I do not like lines. You know lines at grocery stores or department stores or drive through lines at the bank. I just don't like to wait in lines and part of it is because I share a lot of the same characteristics that Martha has. And so what I've developed is a system for trying to figure out which line moves the fastest and is the shortest. You can pretty easily tell which one is the shortest but it's not always easy to tell which one is moving the fastest. And so I've done my best to analyze this and try to figure out how to get into the shortest fastest moving line but almost inevitably something happens in the line that I get in. You found that to be true? You know the cash register blows up or something goes wrong with it or they have the price check or something happens and I know that God is trying to teach me patience. I know that and so I've learned how to handle that fairly well or really have, we've got a running joke in our family. Before we get in a line like that I'll turn to one of them and I'll say you know what's wrong with this line and everybody looks back at me and says yes we're in it and that's kind of a running joke we have with our family. We've kind of learned how to deal with that and laugh about it but the other day I was at the bank and I drove up to the drive-throughs I quickly did my analysis and I saw one line that only had one vehicle in it. Everybody else had at least two vehicles and I thought well that's got to be the quickest line. I sat behind that truck. I sat and I sat and I sat behind that truck. I kid you not, Missy was with me in the car, she could vouch for this. I think every other line at least two vehicles went through while we sat there and you know the little shuttle that you send back and forth and that you put your stuff in and you send it and it sucks it up and then they send it back to you. The guy sent that thing back four times, I counted it four times and finally I'm muttering under my breath to Missy. Is he applying for a loan or something through the drive-through? I was getting angry. I really was. It was really upsetting and I know the Lord is just trying to teach me patience. I was just like Martha getting angry. Lord why does this happen? You might get angry at injustice or people who don't follow the rules like your conscientious nature tells you they should or they're just not as conscientious as you are. You get angry at those things. That's exactly what was happened to Martha and some of you faced the same thing and you add a lot of stress to your life because of that anger that comes from this personality type and responding to things the way that Martha did. We can a half ago, we were on vacation, we were at Disney World, we had our grandkids with us, it was a wonderful time. But if you've ever been there you know that almost every attraction that you go into they will tell you, if it's a theater type thing they will tell you, go in and move all the way across the road to the end of the road so that there's plenty of seating for everybody. You know I just think that's the law that means in Persians you're supposed to do that and if they tell you to do it you're supposed to do that. We walk into one theater and there are only two people ahead of us, a guy and his wife and they walk right to the middle and sit down and I could feel the anger starting to rise. Now it was righteous anger, it really was because that was unjust. He had just heard the same rules, everybody else heard and he just self-centeredly arrogantly said, I don't care if somebody else has to sit on the end, I'm going to get the best seat and that just kind of flew all over me. Now again it was righteous anger I think. But I started getting a little upset at that guy and here we got two little children, two seven year old and a four year old and we're going to have to crawl over them to go on to the end of the road and he doesn't even offer to get up to let us buy. He just sits there with his knees sticking out and his feet spread out and we got to crawl over the guy. So what happened next I am not proud of. I really am not, it's hard to admit. As we walked over that guy I stepped on his foot on purpose and before I sat down the Holy Spirit started really getting after me, started really convicting me. Before I even sat down in my seat I was already feeling, John you are a Christian. Why would you do something like that? Worse yet John you're a pastor, you're supposed to care about people. And I quickly looked down to make sure I didn't have my moody pastor's conference t-shirt on or my Appalachian Bible college t-shirt, that would have made it worse. I was humiliated by what I had done because I was angry at someone who didn't follow the rules just like Martha. When you get so busy and so distracted that you become angry at others for not pulling their weight or not doing what you think they're supposed to do, you know what you're doing? You're doing nothing but adding unwanted and unneeded and unbiblical stress to your life. That's exactly what she was doing. The fourth word that characterizes her is the word critical. Look at it there again, in verse 40, 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. She is critical of the choices that Mary has made. She's not pulling her weight. She's not doing what she's supposed to do. Tell her to help me. I'm the one doing the right thing. You see where that criticism comes in? And she became very critical of Mary's choices and activities and she just knew that what Mary was doing couldn't be as pleasing to the Lord as what she was doing. Now often we find ourselves being angry and critical at others when what we really need is a good dose of self-evaluation. When we need to get before God and say, God what is my heart? Where is my heart right now? What are my attitudes toward these people right now? And we may find much as I did a week and a half ago that really my attitude is probably more sinful than the one who made me angry. But here's Mary or Martha, critical of Mary and her choices. Even critical of Jesus. Don't you care? Tell her to help me. Why haven't you told her already to help me? Critical of Jesus of all things. And do you see her trying to control both of them so that the meal can get done? Jesus you're not doing the right, tell her to help me. Mary you're not doing the right, we gotta get this meal done. You see that stress and tension leads her to sinful attitudes and sinful behavior. But we need to look at Jesus. Jesus is the third character in this picture. And his response to Martha is so instructive. I want you to see what he does. The first word I think that would characterize him would be understanding. Notice what he says in verse 41. Martha, Martha the Lord answered. I don't think I'm unnecessarily reading any expression into that. I think that's probably the way he said it. I don't think it was an condescending or angry tone. I think he spoke with tender love that automatically began to cool down Martha's anger. I think he spoke with compassion. I just, sensitive. We were there, we would have seen a smile on his face. Martha, Martha. He does care. He cares even more than she realizes. She has accused him of not caring. But he does care. He doesn't care about the meal. He cares about her heart. He cares about her spirit. He cares about her attitude. He cares about how she's responding to the strenuous and stressful circumstances in her life. She's not responding very well. That's what Jesus cares about. Yes, he does care. But he cares more about what's going on inside your heart than what's going on around you. So there is understanding. He does care enough to help her with what's really important, to see what's really important. He's so gentle because he understands that this is just Martha's way of showing love to him. He doesn't rebuke her for that. But she's got to learn that the Savior is more important than the meal. So the second word that I think describes Jesus is not only understanding but gracious. Jesus is gracious. Look at what he says next. He says you are worried and upset about many things, but only one thing is needed. He puts his finger right on her problem. You're worried and upset about many things. That is a perfect description of stress. He's got to look and upset about many things. She's busy. She's distracted. She's gotten angry. Now she's gotten critical. Jesus says you are worried and upset about many things. He understands what's going on in her heart right now. And then he changes and shows her that his understanding of the issue is much more important than hers. His understanding of the issue is one thing is needed. Every one thing is needed. Now commentators differ on how that should be understood. Some of them tie it with the next phrase. I don't think it really goes with the next phrase that he talks about Mary. Mary's chosen the better part. I think what Jesus is talking about here is what he has just said. You're worried and upset about many things. You've got to get all the dishes just right. All the things cooking and heated at the right time, same time, put on the table. You're worried about many things about the meal. Only one thing is needful. I think what Jesus was saying was, I don't need much Martha. One dish would have been fine. Just some bread and water or just one thing would have been fine. If you are given to high stress, if you are given to being so busy and distracted and you get angry and critical and you're all time tied up in an ought inside. If you're given to that kind of like Martha was, please remember that Jesus said, my yoke is easy and my burden is light. Do you understand that it's sometimes possible for us to put more expectation on ourselves than what Jesus does? We expect more than what he expects of us. He said, wait a second, God is perfect. He expects us to be perfect, right? Well certainly wants us to give our best, yes. And the Lord deserves our best. But never forget that his yoke is easy and his burden is light. Because we may get so distracted with all the busyness of even doing things for him that we lose sight of the fact that Jesus is saying, back off a little bit, only one thing is needful. I'm not requiring that you meet a performance standard. I'm not saying all 20 things on that list needed to be done today. Back off a little bit, Martha. He's gracious. You see what he's saying? I don't require everything to be perfect and that's what obsessive compulsive feel must be done. I don't require that, Martha. Martha, the Son of God who has precious little time left is in your living room. And you are concerned about the right dishes to prepare? Martha. You're so worried and upset about many things. You only need one dish. That's not the most important thing. And that leads me to the third word about Jesus. He is focusing. He is focusing. And this is what you'll do for us if we'll let him. He will focus our hearts on the real important things. The end of the verse, verse 42, he says, Mary has chosen what is better and it will not be taken away from her. What is better? It is better to focus on the Savior than to focus on the soup. It's better to focus on the master than to focus on the meal. It is better to let eternal things rule our hearts and minds than it is our to do lists. All that we feel like needs to be done. It is better to have an eternal perspective and to realize that we sit at the feet of the master. Christ is more important than our frantic lifestyles and our frantic service even. Christ is more important than that. Enjoy him. Enjoy the Lord. That's what God was telling Martha. So what he's saying is that Mary has got her attention focused on that which is more eternal. She's not distracted, worried and upset about so many things. It's not a fast-paced life that she's all caught up in. It's in recognizing the moment, this moment, the most important thing is to be with the Savior. Most important thing is to spend time with Christ. And I think the lesson that Jesus would teach those of us who are high-stress people is this. Learn to live a day at a time and focus on eternal things. Really ask yourself through the day, is this really important in the light of eternity? What is the most important thing I could do in eternity's perspective? That's what Jesus was doing for Martha. And that's what he wants to do for you and for me.