Big Plans

In the sixth month of Elizabeth’s pregnancy, God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth, a town in Galilee, to a virgin pledged to be married to a man named Joseph, a descendant of David. The virgin’s name was Mary. The angel went to her and said, “Greetings, you who are highly favored! The Lord is with you.”

Mary was greatly troubled at his words and wondered what kind of greeting this might be. But the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary; you have found favor with God. You will conceive and give birth to a son, and you are to call him Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over Jacob’s descendants forever; his kingdom will never end.”

“How will this be,” Mary asked the angel, “since I am a virgin?”

The angel answered, “The Holy Spirit will come on you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the holy one to be born will be called the Son of God. Even Elizabeth your relative is going to have a child in her old age, and she who was said to be unable to conceive is in her sixth month. For no word from God will ever fail.”

“I am the Lord’s servant,” Mary answered. “May your word to me be fulfilled.” Then the angel left her.
- Luke 1:26-38

God has big plans for Mary.  She is going to conceive and give birth to Jesus, to a king whose reign would never end, a holy one called the Son of God.  All she has to do is allow God to take over her life.

Because it won’t just be the 9 months that her body swells and her belly bumps while the promised one kicks - it will be years and years of  taking care of the child Jesus, cleaning up messes, kissing hurts and teaching him to pray - it will be more confusion, incredible joy, unbelievable grief as she watches and wonders over his adulthood, as he becomes a healer and a teacher and finally heads toward his death.  She can’t know all of that from the beginning. But she must sense, as all parents-to-be do, that life is about to change forever.

Still she says yes to God -  yes to his plans to do something new in her for the sake of the world.  And she invites “the Spirit of God to come upon her - the power of the Most High to overshadow her.”

Where is God trying to do something new in your life this day?  What excites you about that? What gives you pause? What would it take for you to say yes, God, may your plans for me be fulfilled?