“The Lord answered: ‘Martha, Martha, you are worried and distracted by many things. One thing is necessary. Mary has chosen the better part. It won’t be taken away from her.” Luke 10:41-42

 The Better Part

This is a fun time of year with all of the planning, preparing, baking, shopping, visiting, traveling, and keeping up family tradition. But the true meaning of this season is so easily diluted by being preoccupied with the other important things that keep us busy. These things are fun but they can also be overwhelming, causing worry and stress. Before we know it, our time is wasted and all becomes a chore instead of a blessing to others and ourselves. We end up reacting to others in stress instead of blessing them with God’s grace and love.

Did Martha get a bad rap? She was doing very important tasks, and these physical things “needed” to be taken care of. She was a hard worker and diligent to complete her obligations, all impressive qualities. Yet the Lord stopped her from complaining by saying, “Mary has chosen the better part.”

What is the better part? Often this requires stopping what I’m doing right now, giving God thanks, and extending praise for saving me, keeping me, providing for my family, giving us loved ones, and mostly, for loving us. Quiet time with the Lord is so important, especially this time of year. We should ask each day, “What is the better part? Lord, help me to choose it—help me to keep You first and allow Your peaceful love to pour out,” thereby drawing in and influencing this needy world for the most valuable thing we can imagine: the reality of God with us, Emmanuel. God gave up everything for us to sit in His presence, absorbing His love and His life-changing Word.

 “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in Him would not perish but have everlasting life” (John 3:16). This is Christmas—the “better part.”

Yes, Mary chose the better part.

“Dear Father, thank You for sending Your Son who gave up everything for us to choose the better part. Lord, I don’t want to miss a thing You have to say to me or do through me. You are the best part, and I pray to be obedient by spending valuable time with You, learning what is the better part, and then doing it. In Jesus’s Name, Amen.”