Mary the Mother of JesusMuestra

Embracing God’s Expectations

God revealed himself to Mary, and he has also revealed himself to us. He is the God of the impossible; he always has been. He is the God who called us to joy, to abandon fear, to release our dreams to embrace his.

So what will be our answer? Mary’s was a resounding, “Yes!” “I am the Lord’s slave,” she said. “May it be done to me according to your word” (Luke 1:38, translation mine). She proclaimed herself fully belonging to God — his slave, his servant, his handmaiden, one with no rights of her own, no separate life, no eight-to-five job with the rest of her time being her own. She chose to be a person who fully, wholly, belonged to her Master.

She surrendered. And she didn’t need great understanding, or to have everything all figured out, or to see God’s plan from beginning to end. She had no idea what her surrender would really mean. She didn’t know it would lead to a manger, to a cross. But she did know that God called her to lay down her dreams and plans in order to embrace his. And she knew there would be a cost.

Mary knew that a “yes” would mean suffering and might even bring death. She knew her fiancé Joseph might leave her. But she said it anyway. She let go of her grip on her own dreams and expectations of life. And she embraced God’s instead.

Will you? Will I? Not just once. Not just in a kitchen or a church service, at camp or in a living room with friends. But every day. Every hour. Will we be willing to let go of our “Josephs,” our houses on the knoll, our orderly lives and dreams and goals? Or will we cling to our own “house” — our own dreams of family, success, and how life ought to be? The call is to lay those aside and instead identify with God’s household, be his slave, accept a new adventure, accept the favor of his presence. Rejoice.

Rejoice?

That our dreams are endangered? That we maybe won’t get the life we planned for, the life we always wanted?

Rejoice? Yes. And surrender. Because you are highly favored. God is with you. And that changes everything.