Who Is Most Important

 Who Is Most Important?

So, what would you and I do if we heard news that was devastating to everything we thought about life and all our well-laid plans?  How long would it take us to adjust our emotions, settle our minds, and be able to see the good beyond the blur of shattered plans and broken dreams?

That truly was the challenge for Mary so what were the first words recorded out of her mouth after her world was turned upside down by the visit of the angel to her, announcing her out-of-wedlock pregnancy, with all it’s potentially horrifying consequences? 

It seems inevitable that Joseph would divorce her.  Rules of the day were that she could be stoned to death.  Pretty extreme stuff to consider, wouldn’t you say?

And surely she’d be feeling a bit sorry for herself.  She’d been faithful to Joseph.  She hadn’t broken any rules.  She was a “good girl” moving forward in the proper way with her life to secure a future for herself and her family in her community.  Why should she have to bear all this?  Didn’t she matter?

We all think these kinds of thoughts when what seems like unprovoked and seeming harsh and unfair things happen to good people.  Years ago a book was even written on the topic, “When Bad Things Happen To Good People”

So Mary’s response to this challenge to her person and her rights as someone whose sought to live well?

“I praise the Lord with all my heart. I am very happy because God is my Savior. I am not important, but he has shown his care for me, his lowly servant. From now until the end of time, people will remember how much God blessed me.

Luke 1:46-48

“I am not important.  I am His lowly servant.  He has show His care for me.  People will remember how much God has blessed me.” 

I’ve reorganized those phrases a bit to help me focus on how to find that place of serenity in the center of God’s will when everything has just blown up around us.  Who’s most important?  Whose care do we trust?  Is God good and blessing us in everything that happens?

Loving God, You truly are the one who knows so much more than us and whose plans worked out in our lives have to happen in ways that at first confuse us because our ways of understanding life are so limited.

I pray today that we would have that deep and amazing understanding that Mary had so we remember that we are nothing more than Your humble servants but that in that, we are more cared for and more blessed than we could ever imagine. 

In our “me centered” world, fill us with Your grace and truth so we, in humility, come to understand reality and the tender mercy with which You are actually bringing the best to us, as we entrust our lives into Your care.  Amen

Who’s most important?  What a great question to consider with God today as we reflect on our life with Him.