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²⁸The angel went to her and said, “Greetings, you who are highly favored! The Lord is with you.”… ³⁰But the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, you have found favor with God…”
Luke 1:28, 30

I frequently say that God is good. All the time. No matter what my circumstances are, I know that the God who is in control loves me beyond my understanding and wants more goodness for me than I understand. Yet it doesn’t always feel that way! Well, I could say that it doesn’t always feel like my husband loves me, too, but I know the truth is that he does. My feelings aren’t the gauge of God’s love for me. Truth determines reality and the truth is that God loves me and is always working both within me and in the circumstances around me to conform me to the image of Christ – and that is definitely for my good. Doesn’t matter how I feel about it. What does matter is how I respond to it.

The angel of the Lord spoke and reported Truth to Mary when he greeted her, saying “The Lord is with you” and “you have found favor with God.” Of course, he immediately follows up the latter greeting with “you’re going to become pregnant even though you aren’t married yet and you haven’t had sexual intercourse yet.” He might as well have met her with the greeting “Good morning, Mary! God is with you! He’s about to mess up your life big time!”

Finding favor with the Lord is a good thing. Having our lives turned upside down – well, from our perspective, not always such a good thing! Lord, give us Your perspective! Example after example after example in Scripture and in history shows us that when God wants to use someone, their life is turned upside down – when God blesses them, their life becomes unpleasant.

It begs the question: What is our definition of being “favored” or blessed by God? Is it a “pleasant” life? Or is it being used by Him to impact those around us and beyond? Mary’s life immediately became unpleasant, and ultimately her heart was shattered as she watched her Son die a horrific death. Yet the angel greeted her “you have found favor with God.”

I want to find favor with God, and I want Him to use me to impact those around me and beyond. I think that means I ought to get used to a life that seems turned upside down. I’m pretty sure it also means that I ought to greet those jumbled and chaotic circumstances with more faith and hope (confident expectation) than I often do. Again, I pray, Lord, give me Your perspective!

How about you? Are you complaining about your circumstances today? Perhaps they are the circumstances that God has orchestrated to favor you. How did you greet them? With grumbling or in faith with thankful praise?

God, help me to greet the jumbled, chaotic circumstances you throw me today in faith and with thankful praise. Help me to respond as Mary did:

“I am the Lord’s servant,” Mary answered. “May it be to me as you have said.”
Luke 1:38a

For more reading about the person God uses – check out this blog from Dec 2008.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 22nd, 2010 at 8:20 am and is filed under Attitude, Blessed Life, Christian Living, God's Love, God's ways, grumbling & complaining, Reading through the Bible in a Year, training for spiritual growth. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.