Page 48 - First Steps 2023

If the evidence is thin, don’t feel ashamed. Instead, realize that you
and Jesus have some work to do together. And these discipling sessions
are a perfect place to begin!

Devotion

3

“As Jesus and his disciples were on their way, he came to a vil-
lage where a woman named Martha opened her home to him.
She had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet listening
to what he said. But Martha was distracted by all the prepara-
tions that had to be made. She came to him and asked, ‘Lord,

don’t you care that my sister has left me to do the work by my-
self? Tell her to help me!’ ‘Martha, Martha,’ the Lord answered,
‘you are worried and upset about many things, but few things
are needed—or indeed only one. Mary has chosen what is better,
and it will not be taken away from her’” (Luke 10:38-42).

There’s a house at 21 King Street in Charleston, South Carolina,
known as “O’Donnell’s Folly” by locals…and for good reason.
Patrick O’Donnell was an Irish immigrant back in the mid-1800s, a
builder who fell in love with a young Charleston belle. When she agreed
to marry him, he promised to build her a home as lovely as she was—and

quickly went to work creating a 10,000- square-foot masterpiece in the
Italianate style.
The house is majestic, but took so long to build—at least four years—

that O’Donnell’s fiancée finally tired of waiting and married someone else.
O’Donnell was left with a spectacular house and no wife or children to fill
it.
O’Donnell lived in the house until his death in 1882—and died a
bachelor.

What would you say is the moral to that story?

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