Astonishment and Advent #4
“God chooses to come to us in our ordinary lives and call us up to active participation in his astonishing and extraordinary purpose.”
What if it was you?
What if it was you that God honoured to participate in His plan of redemption for the entire world? What if you were a modern day Mary, asked to surrender your plans, your future, in order to bring the Saviour into the world? Could you even create the space in your mind, in your heart to fathom the possibility that the angel’s announcement in Luke 1:31: “You will conceive and give birth to a Son and you will name him Jesus”, was directed at you?
What if it was me?
Would my first reaction, like Mary’s, be one of disbelief, of astonishment? “How can this be? I am a Virgin?” Would my response be, “how can this be? I am unworthy. I am broken. I have failed too many times. I am the least likely. I am from the wrong background. I don’t have it together enough to have confidence in my ability to get this right. I am the wrong girl in the wrong place at the wrong time. I have more questions than answers! How can this be?”
Astonishment was one of the key emotions surfacing frequently in the narrative of the Christmas story in Scripture. Starting with Mary, her astonishment was mixed with confusion and not a little bit of mind disturbance. “How can this be?”
I am sure the lowly shepherds were astonished, as well as being terrified, that the angels appeared to them with the news that compelled them to go and see the Messiah themselves, with the chorus of angel praises ringing in their ears as they made their way to Bethlehem. “Why us? How can this be?”
The shepherds could not keep the miraculous news to themselves. “All who heard the shepherds’ story were astonished.” (Luke 2:18)
I am wondering if God knows just how much we have been so used to the ordinary, to the everyday workings of our lives, that we have to be jolted into the truth that God continues to write a story greater than we can imagine.
God chooses to come to us in our ordinary lives
and call us up to active participation
in his astonishing and extraordinary purpose.
What if it was you? What if it IS you?
What if God is coming to you with grace and favour, right now, right here, in the middle of your ordinary life? What if He is asking you to surrender your plans and without fear, receive the truth that He has plans to do something only He can do with your life?
As Jesus grew in wisdom and statue, people in their limited understanding continued to be astonished that someone so great could come from such humble beginnings. After he announced in Luke 418: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, for he has anointed me to bring Good News to the poor; He has sent me to proclaim that captives will be released, that the blind will see, that the oppressed will be set free and that the time of the Lord’s favour has come.”
“How can this be?” they asked, astonished, amazed, undone by the words they had just heard.
Do you believe that there is an appointed time where God visits you with grace and favour and anoints you for participation in His amazing and astonishing purpose?
Yes, you. Astonishing? Yes. But this is how God works. Outside the realm of our understanding. Looking for any who will respond, like Mary: “I am the Lord’s servant. May everything you have said about me come true.” (Luke 1:38)
I pray that when God breaks into your ordinary life and invites you to join him in his eternal purposes, you have a ‘yes’ on your lips.
May your question, “How can this be?” be transformed to a surrendered and beautiful response, “May it be unto me according to your will.”
“We want our lives to catch fire and burn blue, not smoulder. We want to use ourselves up, leave this life the way we entered it – complete – and die with a yes on our lips and not a no, making that last transition, that final threshold with some grace, with eyes wide open and not squeezed shut. We don’t want to enter the kingdom kicking and screaming ad begging for more time. Following our calls, our dreams, is one way to love the lives that God gave us and to flood them with light that can shine back out of them.” Gregg Levoy
May you never cease to be astonished as God continues to write His story – and yours – not only in this sacred Advent season but for the rest of your life.
Cathie