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Two things are foundational for strong relationships. Love and trust. From a human perspective both are imperative.
Imagine Mary’s excitement over her future. As a teenage girl, she would soon marry the man of her dreams. Joseph was a carpenter. He was strong and talented. She would see the things he could build and be impressed and proud. He was also good-looking and the physical labor he did made him even more attractive to her.
But his looks and his giftedness weren’t what drew Mary to this man of her dreams. What Mary was most drawn to was Joseph’s character. He was a man people could trust. He was a man that did the right thing. For all his good qualities, the thing that drew him to Mary most of all was his love for God.
He was a man that she could trust with her life. And someday, she would be his wife. Someday, she would bear his child. Someday…that is until that fateful night when the angel appeared. What was he saying? She was going to be pregnant? Her baby would be the son of God?
The Israelites hadn’t heard from God in over 400 years! How can this happen? Why now? Why to her? What would people say? A fear came over Mary as the next question came to her mind…”What would Joseph say?”
Still, even though she didn’t understand. Even though every dream she ever had was being shattered like fine china on a concrete floor, Mary said, “I am the Lord’s servant. May everything you have said about me come true.” (Luke 1:38)
Maybe it would have been better said, in our day, “OK Lord. I don’t understand, but I trust you.”
Mary knew that trusting God doesn’t mean you understand everything about his plans, it means you trust him to walk through his plans with you. Is God calling you to do something out of your comfort zone? Do you trust him enough to walk through it with you?
I praise God for what he has promised. I trust in God, so why should I be afraid? What can mere mortals do to me? Psalms 56:4
Christmas is often referred to as the night love came down, and nothing is more true. God reached down that night after hundreds of years of silence through a teenage girl to bring love into the world through a tiny babe in a manger.
This love was directed towards a people who had time and again proven themselves to be untrustworthy. From a human perspective, trust is foundational to love. You may have heard someone say something like, “I love him, but I just can’t go on. I can’t trust him anymore” or, “she simply can’t be trusted to do the right thing.”
But from God’s perspective? That night he showed us a kind of love seldom seen on the human level. He loved expecting nothing in return. He loved knowing he’d be stood up. He loved knowing that the ones he loved would never be able to return that love.
In God’s world, trust isn’t required for love because his love transcends our ability to be trusted or to love the way he loves. God loves us without our ability to be trusted. God loves us in spite of our inability to love him back. Can we trust him enough to love him when we don’t understand his working?
Mike Fisk & Built with Grace 