We Are Anxious and Worried About Many Things

Martha, burdened with much serving, came to him and said, "Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me by myself to do the serving? Tell her to help me." Jesus said to her in reply, "Martha, Martha, you are anxious and worried about many things. There is need of only one thing. Mary has chosen the better part and it will not be taken from her."
 Gospel of Luke 10:38-42

There are many Marthas and Marys in this world. Unfortunately, Marthas tend to outnumber Marys by about three to one. What’s even worse is that many of us would not be reading this today if we were Marys. But we aren’t. We are Marthas and for many years Martha has been our patron saint. Many of us have done a great job of emulating her. We’ve worked hard at controlling people, pets, time, calories, jobs and the really big one: Yes, like Martha, we’ve even tried hard to control God. In Luke's gospel story, It's hard to ignore how bossy Martha is in demanding that Jesus tell Mary to get off her duff and help her.

But There is hope for us Marthas. This is a new day and we can trade-in our Marthahood for Maryhood if we choose to do so. First, we need to acknowledge that we have failed in our attempts to control God and life. And that we’re tired of Jesus laughing at us while exclaiming “Martha, Martha! You are anxious and worried about many things!“ We also need to admit that Mary truly did choose the better way. She chose to go with the flow of life as God intended; to fully experience life by actually living it instead of trying to control it. Control keeps us from experiencing the sweet flow of life and of God‘s plan for us.

The need to control life can be summed-up in one word: Fear. Control is a compulsion fueled by fear. We fear change, losing something or someone, being hurt in some way, developing an illness, being sad or lonely, or never feeling lovable or loved. In short, many of us work hard to control life in order to keep our fears at bay and to ensure our own happiness.

We think we can manipulate people and life into making us secure and happy. Many of us have worn ourselves out trying to force happiness into our lives, when we could have chosen to be content with life as it is, and to simply allow happiness to happen. Surrender is the opposite of control. Surrender is letting go, learning to rest at the feet of Jesus and experience life to the fullest as God spreads each day out before us according to his vision. Surrender is also about accepting life on reality’s terms. There are realities we cannot change, and so we can fight a losing battle against them and be miserable, or we can accept and befriend them and breathe easier. Ultimately, surrender is all about allowing happiness to find us.

Today let's learn to let go by giving our insatiable compulsion to control life to God. A good way of doing this is by placing a list of persons and things we want to control into a Surrender box. Any box will do. We just need to find a box we like and consider it a sacred place for God to visit. We can then write down everyone/everything we need to let go of, and place our paper in the box. Next, we need to pray to God, asking that he take charge over all that we are powerless to change, especially all that is written on our list. Once we close the lid, we must surrender everything on the list to God. This means letting go of it all by clearing our minds completely of everything we've just given to God. In doing so, we must accept God‘s plan for our lives-- that very day and everyday-- so that we can feel free to breathe, relax and enjoy life. As time passes, we will find ourselves resting at the feet of Jesus, just like Mary-- the Mary we've become.