May 30

Mary’s Promise

            In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent by God to a town in Galilee called Nazareth, to a virgin engaged to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. The virgin’s name was Mary.  And he came to her and said, “Greetings, favored one! The Lord is with you.”  But she was much perplexed by his words and pondered what sort of greeting this might be.  The angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God.  And now, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you will name him Jesus.  He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give to him the throne of his ancestor David.  He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.” Mary said to the angel, “How can this be, since I am a virgin?”  The angel said to her, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be holy; he will be called Son of God. 

Luke 1:26-35

How do you believe an impossible promise?  How do you hope in something that cannot be done?  I know that God can do anything…but isn’t He supposed to stay within the laws of nature that He created?

Mary was excited about the angel’s message.  She was willing to be mother of the Messiah and see God’s promises come to fruition through her son.  But she could not understand how this would work.  How could a child be born without both a mother and a father?  That went against everything that was known about what was physically possible.  Maybe she had heard wrong or misunderstood the angel.  How would this actually work?

God’s invitations do not follow the same procedures as business or social contracts.  Good contracts lay out in detail which party is responsible for what duties.  They describe how things will be accomplished, the rewards of successful partnership and the penalties if the terms are not met.  The goal of a contract is to leave no room for misunderstanding between the two parties who are agreeing to work together.  God does not work like that.

God will approach us with a single step or invitation.  He does not tend to lay out the entire decades-long plan of our lives.  He will invite us into a great step of faith and then when we have climbed that mountain, He will give us a little bit more and then a little bit more.  We don’t need to be able to understand all the details in order to say yes to God’s invitation.   We just need to be able to trust that the One who is giving the invitation is good and worth listening to.

When we found out that my wife was pregnant, we did not know our entire story.  We knew that we were being called into becoming parents…which took long enough to adjust to.  But we did not know the implications that would accompany that calling.  Everything would change:  how we ate, how we slept, what we worried about, our jobs, our circle of friends.  Everything.  We did not know that we would be introduced to the world of IDD.  We did not know that our lives would be filled with therapies and counseling.  We did not know about school drama and sibling drama and sickness drama.  All we knew was that God was inviting us to love a little boy with everything that we had.

If He is good and if He is trustworthy, then the craziness of the invitation does not matter.  If God really is good and if He really is trustworthy, then the impossibility of what He is saying should not get in the way of us responding in faith.

But it does.  Our minds fill with all the reasons that God’s plan will not work.  It costs too much money.  It is too far away.  There will be no access for my child.  We’ve never travelled that far before.  It is too dangerous.

If God is good, if He is trustworthy, then none of these are valid.  They are simply Fear rearing its head, trying to get in the way of us responding to God.

A moment to reflect:

What has God invited you into that seems impossible?