Faith: To Serve and Accept
I started my Bible study in Luke today and am excited to take on one of the gospels again since I’ve been away from them for awhile. Anyway, I was taken aback by how Luke puts the story of Mary and her response…
The angel replied, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the baby born to you will be holy, and he will be called the Son of God. What’s more, your relative Elizabeth has become pregnant in her old age! People used to say she was barren, but she’s already in her sixth month. For nothing is impossible with God.”
-Luke 1: 35-37
I think of this situation and imagine that Mary could have lost her fiance, become an outcast in society, been rejected by her family, or even been stoned to death for this pregnancy. She could have seen all of these horrible outcomes of her predicament and cursed God, or felt sorry for herself and curled up in a corner. She could have had so many responses to this…but the one she chose is astonishing me. It moves my heart towards God and His purposes and makes me desire to open my own heart the way Mary did.
Mary responded, “I am the Lord’s servant, and I am willing to accept whatever he wants. May everything you have said come true.” And then the angel left.
-Luke 1: 35-38
No tantrum. No spazz out. No, “WHY ME, GOD!?!” She simply states that her purpose on Earth is to serve God. Not to serve herself, not to become wealthy or achieve fame, not to “find herself” and her happy Disney ending. It is to serve God. That one response in and of itself is profound. But, she takes it a step further and says that she is willing to accept whatever God wants. Even the horrible outcomes that must have been floating through her mind at the time.
I won’t go into how this affects my view of life and the way I live because that would just be horribly boring. But, I just wanted to share that Mary’s bold faith, her willingness to serve God as her primary goal in life, and to move beyond it and accept whatever circumstances God gives her (even joyfully as the text goes on!) is incredible. I can only hope that my faith can reflect hers in a way that is pleasing in the sight of God.