every week i get a little dose of wisdom from http://www.planetwisdom.com/. they're all pretty terrific and today, i got one that i'd love to share so here goes!!
No Ordinary Girl
“Blessed is she who has believed that what the Lord has said to her will be accomplished!” —Luke 1:45
At our church Christmas program this last week, the little kids sang a song describing Mary as an “ordinary girl.” I know what the song meant. She wasn’t rich or famous or glamorous. Like lots of other teenage girls, she was in the engagement stage of an arranged marriage to a much older guy. That was ordinary in her culture.
But Mary was no ordinary person. She would stand out in any generation, including yours and mine. Don’t get me wrong. I don’t believe she was anything more than a regular, sinful human girl. But she was also a girl who was willing to believe God with her whole life. That’s not normal.
Look at the verse up there at the top. It’s a sentence that comes at the end of a paragraph in which Mary’s much older and also pregnant cousin Elizabeth is having an excited moment about this unbelievable thing that has happened to them. Notice what she praises Mary for -- not for being rich or talented or smart or pretty -- for believing that God would actually do what God said He would do.
It seems like a little thing when you say it that way, but I think it might be the biggest deal to God of all the things He asks us to do. From Genesis all the way through to Revelation, the Bible urges us to believe God. Take Him at His word. Show our belief in the choices we make, in the thoughts we think, in the words we say. God wants us to trust Him with every corner of our lives.Mary did that -- and Elizabeth was one of the first to call her “blessed.”
Another weird thing about young, pregnant Mary: She knew God’s Word. Right after the above verse, we’re treated to Mary’s famous song. The girl who said very little when the angel told her she would give birth to the Messiah now reveals how deeply she understood what was happening. The girl knew the Book.
It’s not really trusting God just to say, “Yes, I believe everything He says.” People who really believe everything God says sink hours and days and years into reading, studying, understanding what He said. If it’s really God’s mind on that paper, what could be more valuable that putting it in our own heads? Studying His Word is an act that shows we really believe Him.
Nope. Mary would stick out in any demographic. She believed God so much she actually took the time to know His Word deeply -- and to accept His Word with humility.Mary would have made a lousy rap star or self-glorifying NFL player.
She carried God’s Son in her womb and refused to make that about her (as most of us would do, at least in private). Instead, she made it all about Him. She praised Him for His loving, powerful, promise-keeping plan that just happened to include an unordinary girl.She believed. She studied. She was humble.
I want to be weird like that. You?
