In this season of busy (which season is that not true of?), we keep running forward expecting our own hearts and minds to keep up. Trouble is, they often don’t.
Pregnant and traveling with so much unknown ahead and so many questions filling her mind, we find Mary with a refreshing focus that leads by example. The gospel writers note her worship (Luke 1: 46-55) and her selflessness of visiting her pregnant cousin (Luke 1: 39-40).
But it is when the smelly shepherds fill her labor and delivery room with talk of angels and starry eyes, that Mary really captures me heart. In the same situation (as if any one on earth could ever be in that situation again), I would turn inward.
We are often more concerned for the lack rather than the greater abundance of hope.
God was doing a greater work in her lack of typical for the time birthing circumstances, lack of protecting her reputation, lack of human support and encouragement, lack of familiar surrounding, lack of hospitality in the moment of her greatest need. God was bringing about the abundance of greater hope through a Savior, through redemption, through eternity. Mary rested in that truth.
Luke notes the state of her heart with the words, “But Mary treasured up all these things, pondering them in her heart.” (Luke 2:19) She mediated on the abundance rather than the lack. She treasured up the things of heaven rather than crying over the lacks of earth. She lived an example in those young days of unknowns that make my days pale by comparison.
As I turn over the lessons God is tending into my soul by His Word, I am freshly convicted of her example. How can I respond appropriately, Lord, to the beauty and strength of this example?
Rather than running forward with a hurried mind and anxious heart, I will chose to notice, to treasure the moments and to meditate on what God is doing. Rather than getting tangled in the world, I will tether my heart to His Word and live in response.
Join me as we tend our soul like a garden by the Word of God in Tending Together, an online community group for those seeking stability and intimacy with Jesus through His Word.
