In my last post I looked at Mary and Zechariah in Luke 1 and their differing responses to the word of God. You know I have to be honest and say I could relate much more to Zechariah than to Mary. Long years of waiting and disappointment had left me feeling a bit ‘bruised’ within myself and much more likely to question the promises of God than to receive them with rejoicing. But recently God has been stirring my soul with his promises and inviting me to believe… That’s why I’ve been writing about faith in my last few posts because it’s been my current personal journey with God!

God used Luke 1 to show me what my unbelief, fear and doubts looked like, and invited me instead to become like Mary, humbly believing God at his word, fully trusting that nothing is too difficult for him. But its rarely just a simply ‘switch’, I actually had to walk this out with God in real life situations and it was and still is, a journey! I often found I could really believe and trust God for a few days but then I would become worn down and my fears and doubts would mount up again, as not much in the situation seemed to change. 

One thing that really helped was meditating on the promise of God or the truth God was speaking to me for that situation, throughout the day (as well as regularly declaring it). Also I found that often, what God had said to me included an ‘instruction’, as in it wasn’t about just passively waiting. If I wanted to see the promise of God come to pass and see the change happen, I had to play my part and do what God was telling me to do. 

I’m going to share one of the words/promises God has spoken to me, my meditations upon it and how I am walking it out in my life by faith. 

“Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us.” Ephesians 3:20 NIV

As written about in my previous blog post, living by faith has a great deal to do with hearing the voice of God for our situation. However it is not just about ‘hearing’ from God, it matters how we respond to what he has said – how do we receive his words? It really is our choice how we react when he speaks to us.

The Lord desires us to respond with faith, believing him completely at his word. However many of us will struggle with fear and doubt, the “What ifs?” filling our minds… In Luke chapter 1, Mary and Zechariah both hear from God and respond in completely different ways. They show us just how different our reactions and attitude can be.

Firstly, Zechariah is visited by an angel of the Lord (Luke 1:11), who declares that his barren wife, Elizabeth, will have a son named John. Zechariah, however, is not overjoyed and thankful at this news, instead he says, but how can I be sure of this? He goes on to point out the problems in the natural realm that are obstacles to this word being fulfilled.

Living by faith is an essential part of our walk as believers. When we were born again, we put our faith in what we could not see, Jesus Christ and received the fullness of salvation in him. In 2 Corinthians 5:7, Paul commands us to “to live by faith and not by sight”, implying that our faith doesn’t begin and end with receiving salvation, but faith continues to be an essential part of our every day lives. 

Hebrews 11:1 declares that “faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see”. Both 2 Cor 5:7 and Heb 11:1 contrast faith to sight, suggesting that if we are living only by what we can see in the natural realm, we are not living by faith. To have faith is to look beyond what we can see and to be confident in what we do not see. But for most of our time on earth, our primary way of looking at our lives is through our natural eyes! So how can we train ourselves to not be led by what we can see, but instead to look beyond and have faith in what we cannot see? 

At church on Easter Sunday last year, God surprised me in a really beautiful way. All Easter weekend I had been focusing and meditating on a couple of scriptures from Mark’s gospel:

“With a loud cry, Jesus breathed his last. The curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom.” Mark 15:37-38 NIV

The final moment of Jesus’ death had captured my attention in a way it hadn’t before. I spent a lot of time picturing that scene, the moment where his final breath tore the temple veil in two, as well as contemplating what exactly that meant for us as believers… 

Then at church, during worship, I saw that a member of the art team was finishing a large canvas at the front, directly in line with where I was sitting. As I looked more closely at it, I realised that, amazingly, it was the exact scene I had been imagining, of the veil being torn in two! I found it moving to see what I had been intently reflecting on suddenly so vivid before my eyes.

In this final part of my blog series on ‘Only One Thing Is Needed’, I want to look at the question, what does my life look like when I am fully living from this revelation? How is my behaviour different when I live with a ‘One thing’ mentality? To begin with, lets go back to the gospels and read another account of Mary of Bethany, a story which is told in Matthew, Mark and John, but Mary is only actually named in John’s gospel.

Six days before the Passover, Jesus came to Bethany, where Lazarus lived, whom Jesus had raised from the dead. Here a dinner was given in Jesus’ honour. Martha served, while Lazarus was among those reclining at the table with him. Then Mary took about a pint of pure nard, an expensive perfume; she poured it on Jesus’ feet and wiped his feet with her hair. And the house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume. 

John 12:1-3 NIV

Mary again displays her extravagant devotion to Jesus and further reveals the reality of living a ‘only one thing is needed’ lifestyle. Pure nard is a costly perfume, a pint of which would have set you back a years wages. Mary doesn’t pour a small drop over Jesus’ feet or use just enough to get a bit of scent. Nard was stored in an alabaster jar (Matthew 26:7) which had a tall neck that would have to be broken open so the contents could be accessed. It is impossible to use only a little bit, you have to go ‘all in’, therefore every single drop would have been poured out over Jesus’ feet (John 12) and head (Matthew 26/Mark 14).

After my last post you might have had some questions such as, “But what about all the other things I feel I need? What do I do with those desires?” I want to explore these questions in this post as sometimes it just doesn’t feel like a simple choice to only need Jesus.

In 2022 I had a lot insomnia issues that were making me feel very drained and this was coupled with a new ailment of a mystery stomach ache. The stomach ache would come and go but it was also steadily growing worse as the year went on. I’ve had Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS) for some years now and it is horrible to live with, but it doesn’t always ‘press’ on me and make my life as uncomfortable as these sleep/stomach problems were. 

The desire to be fully well and recovered is always there but these ‘new’ physical problems were creating a heightened level of need for a ‘now’ solution. It was in this place of greater need in my physical body that God began to speak this truth to me when I cried out to him – truly only one thing is needed. 

Night after night of waking up at 4am and not being able to get back to sleep began to wear me down. Some days every meal I ate caused my stomach to become sore and tender. In these moments what God was saying to me did not feel easy to receive… I wanted freedom and peace restored to my body and some days it felt like that was all I could think about.

At the end of 2022, I listened to a few podcasts that were reflecting on the year that gone by, particularly focusing on being grateful even if the year had been difficult. Later, writing my own gratitude list for 2022, I saw there was a lot to be thankful for and to celebrate, even if some desires went unmet. Amongst the more obvious things to be thankful for, was a revelation that God had continually spoken into my heart during some of the hardest moments in my year. This truth was that ‘One thing is needed’. 

I found this truth would be the words that Holy Spirit whispered into my soul when I felt most in need, when I was crying out to God with what seemed like unanswered prayers. Yet really he was answering me, it just wasn’t in the way that I wanted. But what does ‘One thing is needed’ really mean? I began to explore this truth with God in scripture.