Words Of Encouragement To Start The Day (Thursday 12/24/09)

When Ordinary Just Won’t Do…

Luke 1:26-38 (New International Version)

²⁶In the sixth month, God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth, a town in Galilee, ²⁷to a virgin pledged to be married to a man named Joseph, a descendant of David. The virgin's name was Mary. ²⁸The angel went to her and said, "Greetings, you who are highly favored! The Lord is with you."

²⁹Mary was greatly troubled at his words and wondered what kind of greeting this might be. ³⁰But the angel said to her, "Do not be afraid, Mary, you have found favor with God. ³¹You will be with child and give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus. ³²He 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, ³³and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever; his kingdom will never end."

³⁴"How will this be," Mary asked the angel, "since I am a virgin?"

³⁵The angel answered, "The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the holy one to be born will be called^[a] the Son of God. ³⁶Even Elizabeth your relative is going to have a child in her old age, and she who was said to be barren is in her sixth month. ³⁷For nothing is impossible with God."

³⁸"I am the Lord's servant," Mary answered. "May it be to me as you have said." Then the angel left her.

I have found myself recently in an unusual place and unusual season, where nothing is ordinary everything seems to be flowing and existing out of my means and resources but according to how God plans for them to be. When I took very ill several months ago, I had nothing but time on my hands to talk with God and pray with and for others. But I also entered into a time when I submitted everything I was to God. I realized that I really had no control and I was either going to fully surrender all to Jesus or I was going to become a slave to the illness that was attacking me. I chose God. I chose as Hezekiah to turn my face to the wall, I chose as Jacob to say I will not let go until you bless me, I chose as Job to say though you slay me yet will I trust you, I chose as Joseph to declare what may have been meant for evil God was going to turn around for my good. All in all it was God’s strength to declare these words that kept my mind and heart, even when my body did not follow. This process in God caused me to enter an unusual season one out my ordinary.

Can you imagine being Mary here she was engaged and thinking she was marrying the man of her dreams, and then she gets sidelines and told the Holy Spirit is going to overshadow her and get her pregnant and that she will give birth to the “Savior of the World.” I know Mary’s initial reaction must have been there goes my beautiful ordinary life; the Bible said she was troubled. I could imagine how many of us with that type of news would have just said oh how wonderful, thank you so much…I understand how that could be, because I am sure she thought one day she would have children, with the man she was engaged to marry, but here she is with a God wrench thrown into the middle of her life. You see when God shows up He has something to say and things to accomplish. The Bible in Isaiah 55:8 reminds us that: "For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways," declares the LORD. God doesn’t do things according to our limited resources, mindsets or time tables. He works in and out of eternity, with a limitless base of knowledge and understanding as well as an unlimited resource at His disposal. So it was nothing for Him to cause a virgin who was just living a normal life and make her name great and establishes her in the heritage of Jesus from ordinary to extraordinary in a moment.

There are times when God will use unusual circumstances to change our thinking, our attitude, our living, our commitment and service to Him by the strangest of situations, because the ordinary just won’t do. Ordinary circumstances just won’t get our attention fully, or it may not even be us; it may be the attention of those witnessing the situation and the elements that surround us, that need a jolt to see and believe. Other times there is a point He wants to prove, or circumstances that need to change in a radical way, so God will allow the ordinary to become the extraordinary to get the attention of all involved

So, today when things look odd or out of the ordinary realize God may be at work. Let us submit ourselves and all that we think we desire unto the Lord, for His plan or way of getting us where God needs for it to be may be extraordinarily different from ours. He may have need of what use to be our ordinary lives to bring extraordinary change to all who see, hear and come in contact with us.