Daily Life in the Kingdom

The routine never ends early. She rises before everyone else in the home. The husband still snores. The children turn in their beds. She gets little help and little thanks. Kids must be prepared for school. Breakfast has to be put on the table. Book bags have to be inspected. Then there’s the drive to school. It all has to happen with enough time to get yourself together and get to work. Then you’ve got to hustle after school to pick up the kids, get dinner on the table, check homework, and squeeze in discipline, correction, or instruction with the kids. You feel as if you’re the only one doing anything. He hasn’t helped nearly enough or said thanks. No one seems to notice, and you’re exhausted.

My wife describes housework as constantly putting pearls on a necklace with no knot at the end of the string. There’s a futility in the beauty of it all. The sense that life as a woman, a mother, or a wife “doesn’t count” haunts a lot of women. Maybe that sense that there’s too much to do as a woman keeps creeping in on you.

Judith Warner, a sociologist, has captured this feeling in her book, Perfect Madness: Motherhood in the Age of Anxiety:

This book is an exploration of a feeling. That caught-by-the-throat feeling so many mothers have today of always doing something wrong. And it’s about a conviction I have that this feeling—this widespread, choking cocktail of guilt and anxiety and resentment and regret—is poisoning motherhood for American women today. Lowering our horizons and limiting our minds. Sapping energy that we should have for ourselves and our children. And drowning out thoughts that might lead us, collectively, to formulate solutions.

The feeling has many faces, but it doesn’t really have a name. It’s not depression. It’s not oppression. It’s a mix of things, a kind of too-muchness. An existential discomfort. A mess. (Warner, Perfect Madness, 3–4)

I think she perfectly describes the “too-muchness” and messiness a lot of women face. What’s the answer to that “too-muchness”? Martha thinks the answer is to get more help.

Jesus gives a different answer. Jesus says to Martha and women (and men) everywhere: In all your busyness don’t forget that only one thing is necessary. That one thing is not the next task on your to-do list. That one thing is not serving others. The one necessary thing is enjoying the Lord himself.

That’s what Mary chose. The Lord calls it “the right choice.” And it “will not be taken away from her” (v. 42). The use of the word choice is interesting. It’s related to the lawyer’s use of the word inherit in verse 25. Throughout the Bible, God says that he himself is the “portion” or “inheritance” of his people.

Who do I have in heaven but you? And I desire nothing on earth but you. My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart, my portion forever. (Ps 73:25-26; emphasis added)

Because of the Lord’s faithful love we do not perish, for his mercies never end. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness! I say, “The Lord is my portion, therefore I will put my hope in him.” (Lam 3:22-24; emphasis added)

The purpose of eternal life is enjoying the Lord as your portion. The reason we are saved is to enjoy God. To sit with him. To listen to him. To talk with him. To treasure him as our inheritance. The Lord Jesus is the good portion that we should choose before or instead of being busy with all kinds of acts of service.

And not only is the Lord our portion, but we are his portion, too. Deuteronomy 32:9 says, “The Lord’s portion is his people.” We inherit him, and he inherits us. And here’s the wonderful promise: When Jesus is your portion he “will not be taken away from” you. The Lord is forever ours. We are forever his. Nothing will ever separate us from his love. No one will ever pluck us from his hand. Never will he leave us; never will he forsake us. The Lord is our portion and inheritance forever. That’s why Mary has chosen the one necessary thing: sitting at Jesus’s feet in the fellowship of his word.

Here’s what I had to ask myself writing this: If the Lord is my portion and he is never taken away from me, how much of my day is he sitting, waiting for me to notice he is the one necessary thing? Far too often I tragically miss out on sitting at his feet, pushing back on the busyness of the world, to savor the love of the Lord. Let us repent together of this and be a people who enjoy the salvation that the Lord purchased for us. Let us go to Christ with the comforting promise, “It will not be taken away from us.”

Husbands, one of the best ways you can love your wife is to make sure she has time to meet with the Lord. Rearrange the family schedule. Take on more of the household responsibilities. Rescue her from the children. Do whatever is necessary for her to have adequate time to sit like Mary at the Lord’s feet. It’s an everyday expression of love that will bless her soul immensely.

Practicing a benign neglect of things that can be neglected in order to commune with Christ is a great privilege to the Christian.

Luke 11:1-13

Jesus “was praying in a certain place” (v. 1). A disciple saw him and asked, “Lord, teach us to pray” (v. 1). That request means prayer is not something learned automatically. Prayer is not natural. Effective prayer has to be taught and learned. There’s no shame in not knowing how to pray or feeling uncomfortable in prayer. There’s only shame if we don’t ask to be taught and as a result spend years of our Christian lives ineffective in prayer.

In response to their request, Jesus shows them three things about prayer.

First, Jesus explains the pattern of prayer. We see this in Luke’s abbreviated version of the Lord’s prayer. He doesn’t mean their prayers should be limited to these exact words. He means that these are the kinds of priorities that should shape their prayer lives. It’s a kind of template.

They are to address God as “Father” (v. 2). Prayer is something that happens between the Father and his children. It’s a family conversation. There is to be intimacy in it.

They are to ask for two things related to God: (1) that his name be honored and (2) that his kingdom come. They are to pray that God’s name would be “holy” (v. 2) and revered. To honor God’s name is to respect God’s person. They’re praying for the fear of the Lord to grip the hearts of men. To pray for his kingdom to come is to pray for the eternal life the lawyer asked about. It’s to pray for the Lord to return, to resurrect the dead, and to bring in eternity where sickness and death are no more, only love and joy with him. Their prayer ought to begin with God and focus them on the kingdom.

Then they are to ask three things for themselves: (1) daily bread, (2) forgiveness of sins, and (3) protection from temptation. They are to depend on God for all their daily needs, including the daily need for forgiveness and victory over temptation. And just as disciples have received forgiveness, they are also to give forgiveness.

That’s the pattern: first pray for God’s kingdom, then for man’s needs. This pattern keeps us from wandering all over the place in prayer or from simply praying the same things. This structure gives us direction.

Just having a pattern of prayer won’t make us prayer warriors. We also need determination. To truly pray, Jesus wants us to understand that we must persist in prayer. We can’t ask for something one time then go off as if we never asked anything of the Lord. It’s persistence that gets the results.

Maybe we’re helped to understand this story if we bring it up to our day. Imagine you receive a phone call at midnight. What’s the first thing you think? Who’s calling at this time of the night? They call again. This time you might check the caller ID. But you don’t answer the phone, do you? You say to yourself? I wonder what they want? Nevertheless, you roll over saying, “It can wait ’til morning.” Then the phone rings again and you think, She isn’t going to leave me alone. I better answer the phone!

It’s the caller’s persistence that gets the assistance. So Jesus says in verses 9-10, “Ask . . . seek . . . knock.” Those are continuous verbs. These are actions we’re supposed to start and not stop.

The pattern of verses 2-4 plus the persistence of verses 5-10 equals effective prayer.

No good Father would answer their child’s request with an evil substitute (vv. 11-12). If an evil man gives good answers to his children’s requests, how much more will our heavenly Father give us his best?

Matthew 7:11 ends this same saying of Jesus with “How much more will your Father in heaven give good things to those who ask him.” Luke gets more specific: “How much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him?”

God gives his children the best answers to their prayers. He gives himself. He gave his Son to us on the cross, and he gives his Spirit to us for daily living. He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not along with him give us every good thing?

We can live in daily dependence on God because our Father will give us the one necessary thing: the Holy Spirit. Through the Spirit, God provides all we truly need to defeat temptation, forgive sin, and find daily bread.

There are many Christians who are almost following Jesus.

They are almost living a victorious Christian life. But “almost” only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades. We don’t want to settle for an almost-Christian life. We want to enter into the eternal life that Christ has purchased for us. We want to sit at the Lord’s feet to learn his ways. We want to persist in prayer as the children of God until filled with the Spirit. That’s the life the Lord gives all who believe in him. It’s the very best life possible. Live this life today and each day.