At His Feet

“ But one thing is necessary, Mary has chosen the good portion, which will not be taken away from her.” - Luke 10:42

Jesus is coming back for His Bride. What an amazing promise! Our King Jesus - Savior of the world, Risen One, the Great I am – is coming back for His Bride, for His people, for you, and for me. Not only is He coming back for us but He will usher us into a new reality where we will spend every second of every day of our eternal life at His feet, consumed by His love and in awe of His presence. When our time on this earth comes to an end and we enter eternity with Jesus we will sit at the foot of His throne and day and night we will never cease to say “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty, who was and is and is to come!” (Rev 4:8) Allow that reality to sink into the depths of your heart for a moment.

Our eternal posture will be one at the feet of King Jesus. That is such a beautiful part of the gift of our salvation. We get to spend eternity gazing at His face and singing praises to His name. However, I would argue that we would be severely underestimating the power of the blood of Jesus to believe that the glorious gift of salvation is only but a punched ticket to heaven at the end of our sojourning on earth. I want to make the daring statement that in His beautiful, abundant, sacrificial love Jesus had so much more in mind for us. The posture that we will so naturally take in our eternal home is available to us now. The invitation to sit at His feet on this side of Heaven may seem counter cultural and silly but our Savior desires to be known by us and has done everything possible to make that intimacy accessible - we only need to learn how to receive it. I believe the Lord is beckoning His people to a posture of surrender and humility. One of desperation and abandon. He is inviting us to places of intimacy where true transformation of our hearts can occur. When you sit at the feet of the real thing every counterfeit this world has to offer will never satisfy. He is coming back for a Bride fixated on His face and humbly surrendered at His feet. Just as in the story of Mary in Luke 10, I believe the Bride that Jesus is coming back for will be a people remembered for one posture: bowed down at the feet of our Father.

"Now as they went on their way, Jesus entered a village. And a woman named Martha welcomed him into her house. And she had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord's feet and listened to his teaching. But Martha was distracted with much serving. And she went up to him and said, “Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to serve alone? Tell her then to help me.” But the Lord answered her, “Martha, Martha, you are anxious and troubled about many things, but one thing is necessary, Mary has chosen the good portion, which will not be taken away from her.” Luke 10:38-42

I find it so interesting that in the other places this encounter is recorded in scripture Martha is not mentioned, even though this occurred in her house. She was the host, the one making preparations for their visitors, the one who was doing a lot. What a contrast to Mary’s posture “who sat at the Lord’s feet and listened to His teaching” (Luke 10:39). We live in a culture where programs and formulas tend to take precedent over the pursuit of His presence. What would happen if we flipped the tables of modern day religion by simply stepping out of the "do more; get more of God" model, quieted the world around us (to which we don't belong by the way), and got serious about pursuing God's presence in the still, small spaces? What would happen if we were quiet and attentive long enough to let the Savior of our souls speak to the most hidden parts of our heart that need His touch the most? What would happen if, as His Church, we refused the model we have adopted from culture of performance, comparison, and competition and instead approached His House with hunger for one thing: Him? What if we shifted from a "me" or "us" centered vision to a Christ centered focus? I personally believe we would see a people set on fire. We would see cities changed, lives set apart for His glory, and maybe even a little glimpse of His will on earth as it is in heaven.

The first thing I think of when seeing someone sitting at the feet of another is a child sitting at their parents’ feet. It’s a child-like posture, one of humility and inherit need. To sit at someone’s feet was also considered a posture of servanthood. Mary didn’t mind taking the lowest place in the room and many times throughout scripture she is criticized for it. In a culture that encourages self-promotion it feels awkward and inherently wrong to refuse the hustle and step out of any lime light we have been given. We live in a fallen world that is actively trying to keep us from the feet of Jesus. A world where hustling leads to burnout, affirmation becomes an idol, comparison and performance create deep levels of insecurity or even, dare I say it, pride. At the end of the day it leaves our hearts feeling empty, unloved, and tired. The Lord has so much better for us.

In 2022 at the age of twenty-nine I was promoting quickly through my career. I was a hard-working, perfectionist who loved a challenge and had done a decent job of breaking into a male dominated career path with quite a bit of success. I was married to the most handsome, loving, hard-working man (you all know him now as Adam from Glasshouse) who happened to work in the same industry as I did at the time. We had just bought our first home, two brand new cars, and were doing well financially. We attended church, were involved in a small group, volunteered, and tithed on a regular basis. On the outside, we looked like the picture perfect “successful Christian couple.”

However, dive a little deeper and you would see a woman who was running her mind and body into the ground chasing the approval and affirmation of others. A woman holding on to bitterness and resentment in her marriage and using her successful career and affirmation from those around her as weapons for control and manipulation. I was a woman bound by the opinions of others and caught up in performance, comparison, and competition in every area of my life. In the inner depths of my heart was a woman who was anxious, tired, broken, hungry, hurt, and lost.

But Jesus. The greatest gift I have received is the love of a God who was gracious enough to let me stumble to the end of myself and into a place where I could more fully know Him. A note to the one reading this who feels as though you are coming to the end of yourself: You are seen, known, loved and valued by the God who created the heavens and the earth and in the depth of His love for you He has allowed you to get to this place. He is here. He isn't waiting for you to have it together, or to arrive at a self diagnosis, or to find the "right Christian response" to your situation. He isn't waiting for a polished prayer. He is waiting for that lock on the back closet door of your heart that has been desperately trying to hide the mess away to pop open and let the messy pile fall free. As hard as you may try that key never seems like it is willing to budge. You may feel like you can never fully get it to release. My friend, here is the sweet relief we find in Jesus - proximity to Him is the very thing that breaks the lock and key off the doors of the darkest parts of our hearts. In His presence there is freedom (2 Corinthians 3:17).

Ultimately, the Lord brought me to a place of complete and total surrender of everything I had previously held with a death grip. In this season He stripped me of any notion I had that I was my own provider. He tore down the idol of self- promotion and relational affirmation that had clouded my view of the deep friendship I could find in Him and Him alone. He took the mess of a pile that had fallen out of the locked door in my heart and brought clarity in my brokenness. He brought me to my knees in repentance. And through it all He beckoned me back to the place He always intended for me to stay, at His Feet.

This journey was painful and beautiful all at once. Letting go of things that we’ve allowed to define us is never easy, and it is a daily choice to take the humble posture of sitting at the feet of our Father and pursuing intimacy with Him above every other thing competing for our attention. It isn’t always easy and trust me – it is always costly. But He is worth it. In every mention of Mary in scripture she is found at the feet of Jesus (Luke 10:38-42, John 12:1-7, Mark 14:3-9, John 11:28-36). And every time we find her there we read of someone who criticized her for it. However, every time Mary denied the urge to elevate herself, her work, or her accomplishments and sit at the feet of her Savior, He defended, protected, and used her faith as an example.

I believe the Lord is burdening the hearts of His people to pursue His presence above all else. This paradigm shift in the modern church is actually a return to our first Love. Our beautiful Yahweh God has always been and will always be the great initiator. We love because He first loved us (1 John 4:19). The deep yearning of our heart to know Him and our desire to love Him was first initiated BY Him! And the beauty of His design is this - in our knowing Him, the world will know Him more. What would it look like if, as believers, we made the radical choice to forsake all other lovers and passions of this world (self-promotion, competition, comparison, success, praise of man, you fill in the blank) and instead chose the lowly route of simply being with Him? What if He is called us to be a people like Peter and John who, when the world looks at us they cannot deny that we have been with Jesus (Acts 4:13-14)? Just like in the story of Mary, the story of Peter and John, and countless other accounts in the gospels - when our heart is in a posture of surrender and adoration the Lord will not only take care of the ramifications, He will use us to show others the beauty, power, and safety of abiding in His presence.

This blog is my attempt to share the glimpses of that reality the Lord has allowed me to see. These words are my offering to the pursuer of my heart, My King, My Savior, My Lord, and my first Love. In the depths of these posts you will hear parts of my story and see parts of scripture where the Lord challenges, corrects, and convicts to lead us unto Him. In these cross road moments you will find the comfort of a Savior who knows you and wants to be known by you. My prayer for us as we journey together is that He will show us how the very purposes He has placed inside of us will always lead us back to one place: At His Feet.