Feet First (part one)

One month ago I heard a Pastor share an encounter she’d had with Jesus, which has subsequently wrecked me. She heard Him ask “When you get to Heaven will you recognise my feet?”

Just ponder on that for a moment.

For sure there are occasions when we spend time with Jesus in prayer; we may look to His face or maybe His hands for what He will give to us or take from us. But rarely do we look at, or spend time at His feet.

Yet there is something happening these days that I have rarely experienced in my 30+ years of being a Christian; a deep, heartfelt cry from God to His Church, the Body – a corporate cry – to turn back to Him. It is also a call to His Bride, to draw closer to Him like never before, in intimacy, in the secret place, One to one, face to face, with the door closed, the phone pushed aside and our attention fully on Him. He wants a greater personal encounter with us. But why does He want us to be at Jesus’ feet?

There is an oft quoted story from Luke 10:38-42 about two sisters, Martha and Mary.

“…Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet and listened to what he was saying. But Martha was distracted by her many tasks.”

v.39-40

Right there is the key word: distraction.

Martha has long been held up as an epitome of being over-busy – that we should ‘do less and be more’ – that we should lessen our commitments or activities so that we can spend more time in prayer, or slow down the pace of our lives in order to reduce the levels of stress we put ourselves under. Maybe we are workaholics who need to have a better work life balance, or perhaps we can’t say no to people or situations that need help or attention and we then dive in to offer support without thinking of the impact it will have on our time.

Whatever type of busyness is going on in our lives right now, poor Martha has been the example to teach us that there is a better option.

In a moment of having a personal visit from Jesus, whom she welcomed into her home, Martha, perhaps from an attitude of pride or sense of duty, proceeded to be distracted away from His company and the valuable life lessons He was no doubt disclosing. In this instance, she allowed herself to be distracted by the work that needed doing.

There are times in our lives and in our relationship with Jesus, when we need to choose to turn away (or turn off) distractions and spend concentrated time with Him; not from a sense of duty, not with one eye on the clock …’Come on Jesus, hurry up and speak, I’ve a pot on the stove that’s going to boil over any minute..’, not slotting Him in-between our two favourite TV series, but rather with a determination to momentarily set aside ALL things and focus entirely on Him, like the other sister, Mary.

Note her position. She was sitting on the floor. She had lowered herself physically and thereby demonstrated a humble attitude. She wasn’t going to get up in a hurry, even though I’m sure that she too was aware of the all the tasks that needed to be done because there were guests present. Instead, she “chose the better way”, sitting at Jesus’ feet, showing that she respected Him, honoured and revered Him. She was demonstrating that He was more important than anything else going on in that moment of time. Mary stilled herself and opened herself up to listen to the words He was speaking. She had a more intimate relationship with Him than Martha did.

Imagine spending time with your spouse, child or best friend. Of course you can talk and spend time together in the midst of doing things, cooking, shopping, watching TV, writing emails etc. But when you have something meaningful to say, something of significance, you wait for a particular moment. You may even set apart a portion of time so that you can talk alone, with fewer or no distractions around. You want their full attention.

I’m sure we’ve all seen engaged couples gushing over each other, sitting closely, holding hands and gazing into each other’s eyes. They have a desire to spend the maximum amount of time together, and when they do, they ignore all other distractions to order to give their full attention to each other. Even when they are apart and with other friends, they will make comments about their partner, or try and turn the conversation around to talking about their relationship so that they can declare how special and wonderful it is.  We call this being ‘love sick’.

Are we love sick with Jesus, the ‘lover of our souls’? Are we so enamoured by our Saviour that we are willing to put aside other things just so we can spend more time with Him?

When the Pastor I mentioned at the start, shared her thoughts, I responded by writing in the online chat: “Jesus is calling His lovers, His Bride unto Himself, to be ready for Him and His return.”

Jesus is returning for those who are looking to Him and not to the distractions of this world. The best way we can be ready for Him, is to position ourselves humbly and respectfully at His feet, like Mary, and not be in a rush to leave, and then listen to His voice again and again until will recognise it as uniquely His. By doing that, we will be like the five virgins who had oil in their lamps (Matthew 25:1-13) who heard when the bridegroom was returning.

In these strange and turbulent times, when things are constantly changing about us and storms of all varieties are around us; when voices fuelled by emotion are screaming for attention and demanding our allegiance, there is one voice alone that will remain consistent, true and trustworthy; the still small voice of God. He is worth listening to – feet first.

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