Intimacy with God may require leaving our comfort zones. Some people feel uneasy in the presence of God. They dismiss the act of worship as too emotional, preferring the intellectual pursuit of Bible study or doctrine. Or they simply have trouble being still, because that’s their personality. But regardless of our temperament, regardless of our emotional preference, we are all called to intimacy with God. The one thing Martha needed is the one thing we need as well.

If you struggle to stay at his feet, ask the Lord to reveal what is hindering you. There is no need to lay aside your intellect or your personality when you enter the Living Room. Just come as you are.

As a child of God.

Children, after all, love intimacy. “Hug me, Mommy!” With arms stretched upward, they beg, “Daddy, hold me!” From infancy, when frightened or ill, the first place our children long to be is as close to our heart as they can get. They cuddle in, pressing themselves into our arms.

That is the intimacy our Father desires to share with us. Not because we’ve earned it, but because he hungers for it. And so do we, whether we’re aware of it or not.

Having a Mary Heart in a Martha World, by Joanna Weaver

Intimacy with God the Father – Abba, Daddy – isn’t something I thought much about until I started spending an hour a week in His lap. Intimacy, for me, came from time spent together, from getting comfortable enough in His presence to cozy up and really get down to my concerns and my real thoughts about things. Getting intimate required listening too, letting Daddy correct my wrong and hug me and nod at my ramblings.

In this passage, the image that most touches me is the image of a child, arms upraised, saying “Up, Daddy!” in a pleading voice. I live with a child who’s at the right age to randomly demand that very thing, and in the midst of the conflict that is our mother-daughter relationship, I’ve been realizing just how much we have in common. I may be 30 and she may be almost-three, but to our Daddies, we’re not so very different.

I love the thought that Daddy wants to pick me up as much as I want to be picked up. And I’m going to work on reminding myself of that in two or three hours, when I need to be picked up!