I have been re-reading the account of Mary's conversation with the angel.
The angel told Mary that she was going to carry the saviour of the world.
After her very natural response of "How can I get pregnant, I am still a virgin?"
She accepted the angel's answer. " For no word from God can ever fail"
Her reply to that was " I am the Lord's servant" "May your word to me be fulfilled."
Mary's faith was in a big God. She trusted that if God said it, then she had to believe it.
Mary's walk with God was a close one. She knew that He could be trusted.
Mary then had to have faith in the waiting. She had to wait for her body to tell her she was pregnant. Then have faith as she waited for the day of her son's birth.
The waiting didn't stop at his birth, as she had to have faith to see whether all the prophecies of his birth came to pass.
Mary's whole story has been one of faith while she waited.
I want to have Mary's faith. I want to see God the way she saw him.
I want to pray big prayers, believing that my God is bigger than what I am praying for.
I have started to journal big prayers. Some of what I have written down requires a miracle. It's a good job God is in the business of miracles.
What are you waiting for God to do during this Advent?
Maybe you haven't asked the big prayers because you don't want to be disappointed.
Let's be more like Mary and start believing that God's words never fail, and let's realise how big God really is.
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 favoured! 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 favour 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[b] 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.
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