I’ve been thinking about the story of Mary this Christmas season. I wonder how inconvenient God’s will in Mary’s life must have been.
Do you ever feel like that? Like God shows up or calls you into something, and it just doesn’t look the way you imagined it, expected it, and definitely not how you desired it?
Think about it for a minute, I’m sure you can relate this to a situation in your life.
Mary had her whole life ahead of her. She was about to marry a man who loved her and get to start a family with him.
Then God showed up; and He told her that all her plans and dreams were about to take a back seat.
She had to let go.
She had to face the fear of losing all the things that were finally so close. All because God showed up and said, “No, this is what I have for you.”
I wonder if Mary would have regretted it if she had chosen to shut God out when He asked her to be a part of the story. I wonder if she imagined that by risking everything, she was going to be a part of the story that saved mankind.
I think about how many times God has shown up in my life, asking me to let go of my own life, my own dreams, my own ‘finally’s and I have said NO! I wonder how many times something immeasurably more has been waiting on the other side of His big ask, to invite me to be part of a story that was bigger than me.
I think that, just like Mary, staring down the possibility that her whole life is about the fall apart, I think Jesus is always waiting on the other side, when God shows up.
Maybe now, next time he tells me He has something better for me, I’ll trust him. Maybe next time, I’ll believe him.
Next time God says, “No, this is what I have for you”, I’ll remember Mary.
Maybe you will too.
