Day 24

“Blessed is she who has believed that what the Lord has said to her will be accomplished.” — LUKE 1:45

Among women, God had found favour with Mary. In the obscure town of Nazareth, He sent His angel, Gabriel, to her with a profound message that would bless the world. But first, he said, “Greetings, you who are highly favoured! The Lord is with you.” 

To be favoured is to be blessed, but how do we find favour with God? At a very young age, Mary had learned to trust God and her faith was pleasing to Him. Hebrews 11:6 tells us that without faith it is impossible to please God. Mary lived in a spirit of dependence upon God and obedience to Him. God looked at her heart and loved what He saw.

Mary also experienced the fear of God. Still in her adolescence and a virgin, she was told something that was utterly unreasonable from every human perspective; that she would conceive a child and this child would be called the ‘Son of the Most High’. Her natural reaction was fear, which is not surprising, because when God speaks, it is almost always beyond reasonable human expectation. 

Relying on ourselves, we are unable to see or bring about what we are called to do, and often prefer to remain in the normalcy of the world where everything is explicable and predictable. But we have a choice. We can expand with God into the abnormal, or we can squeeze Him into the normal and experience little of His working in our lives. When fear steps in, we realize we need resources much greater than our own, and Mary had looked to God. “I am the Lord’s servant,” she answered. “May it be to me as you have said.” (Luke 1:38) 

Mary trusted God for things unseen and rested in the power of His Holy Spirit. God desires that from all of us, to enter into His world and trust Him. He doesn’t give responsibilities without giving us resources, and His resource is Himself. Enduring the stigma of an unmarried pregnant girl already betrothed and with only silence from heaven for three decades until Jesus began His ministry, Mary never wavered in her faith. “My soul glorifies the Lord,” she said, and Scripture tells us how she treasured these things and pondered them in her heart. 

Mary’s light shines before us all. Through her exemplary faith in God and love for Him, every generation since has been divinely blessed with the humble birth in a Bethlehem stable of our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ.

PRAYER: Dear Heavenly Father, above every blessing in my life is the birth of our Lord, Jesus. He came into this world in the most humble way and died so that He may live again in our hearts. Thank You for the blessed virgin Mary, for her amazing faith, which gave our Lord a home until His ministry began. I pray, dear Lord, for her kind of faith to grow deeper and stronger in me.

TO REFLECT UPON: When God calls me to a task, do I experience an element of fear? Is my mind searching for ways in which I can accomplish it, or do I rest in the Spirit, taking one day at a time, knowing God will do it through me?