Proper Service of God Begins with Prayer

“Martha welcomed Him into her home. Mary has chosen the better part.” This was written in the Magnificat last Tuesday as a summary of the Gospel and it made me think about the fact that in our lives and specifically during prayer, we can invite Jesus into our hearts, but do we stay with Him, listening to Him and giving Him our attention? Or do we begin to be preoccupied with worldly things and get distracted easily? We can even be doing good things in service of the Lord, like Martha, but if we let it completely overtake us and we feel like it has to be done our way and in our time, we end up pulling ourselves away from Jesus. When Mary chose the better part, she was inviting Jesus into her home and taking advantage of His presence, listening to His words and internalizing them so that when she did go into service, she would have the foundation of a relationship with Jesus and a true knowledge of Him, which her service would flow from.

We need to take the time to be silent with Jesus in prayer, listening to Him and meditating on His words. This enables us to take on the mind of Jesus and we begin to act as He would, spreading His love and truth to those around us in our everyday lives. We begin to learn to serve Him as He wants us to, and not just in the way that we think is best. Martha welcomed Jesus, but then became preoccupied with serving Him in the way that she thought was proper without taking the time to listen to what He was saying and what He might want from her. Mary chose to listen and so Jesus said that she had chosen the better part. Praying and listening to God is the better part because without it, we serve God with our own human interests still in mind and we never learn how to do it His way.

Do you serve God in your own way or do you let Him influence your acts of service? How can you better incorporate prayer into your daily life so as to come to know Jesus better and serve Him more effectively?