I find myself "confused and disturbed" a lot of the time. It doesn't have to be prophetic news that will alter my every living moment ... it just has to be a headline that pops across msnbc.com ... or someones latest FB status ... or a green light that turned red making me wait another .45 seconds to cross the street ... or the price of my groceries ... or another outbreak of terror ... or a bad health report from someone I care about ... or missing home ... or ... you name it ... there's always something ready to throw me into "confused and disturbed".
After the Angel, Gabriel, tells Mary, teen-aged-soon-to-be-Mom-of-the-Son-of-God the "news" of her future ... she was according to the New Living Translation of the Bible "confused and disturbed". Ya' think!?! It was part of her human condition (and ours) to respond to such news emotionally and perhaps physically. However, it was the second thing the Angel told her ... "Don't be afraid." ... that's the bigger lesson here.
That's where Mary's story stops and mine begins.
If you follow this story in Luke 1 ... you see why she is not be afraid: "the Holy Spirit will come upon you". Then, to hit home the point something miraculous was happening here ... he tells her "Nothing is impossible with God!"
Mary chose to hear God's voice as the "truth". She chose to believe what the angel was saying ... and her belief affected how her body reacted. She chose to cooperate with what God was doing. For a teenager, she was a pretty smart cookie, that Mary!
Jesus' birth is a miracle ... an answer to a long-awaited promise ... changes history. How Mary responded is a lesson to my heart today.
After she heard TRUTH ... she was able to align her thinking and act accordingly. I am gonna be "confused and disturbed" as long as my feet carry me around on planet earth. However, my I never forget the POWER of the Holy Spirit ... made available to me because of the birth of Jesus ... and given as a gift after his death ... I do not have to embrace "confused and disturbed" as a way of life! When I choose to hear God's voice ... among all the other voices that beg and often demand my attention (and may I just add especially at Christmas) ... then that act of choosing truth gets inhaled into a body that is waiting to respond accordingly! Once I operate out of truth ... my body rests. The Holy Spirit brings peace and joy into what was once "confused and disturbed". Sound too good to be true? Well, my skeptical Friends: NOTHING IS IMPOSSIBLE WITH GOD!
choosing POWER (especially at Christmas),
christina
