“And Mary said: “My soul magnifies the Lord, And my spirit has rejoiced in God my Savior.”Luke 1:46-47 NKJV
Note before sharing the devotional: I’ve been well familiar with the Song of Mary for much of my life, with this text being a regular canticle for evening worship services in the Episcopal Church. That said, even though this isn’t part of today’s devotional, the below passage has really stuck out to me for years, especially in light of yesterday’s post (Jesus really cares about people being humble):
“He has shown strength with His arm; He has scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts. He has put down the mighty from their thrones, And exalted the lowly. He has filled the hungry with good things, And the rich He has sent away empty.”Luke 1:51-53 NKJV
The Story God is Writing
Mary had quite the unique journey to motherhood. An unmarried virgin, she carried the Son of God. Mary could have easily felt lonely or isolated, but she was not alone in the story God was writing.
For decades, Mary’s relative Elizabeth and her husband Zechariah prayed and asked God for a child. After many years, God answered their prayers. When an angel told Mary she would give birth to Jesus, the Savior of the world, she went straight to Elizabeth, who was a few months along in her own miraculous pregnancy.
When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting upon her arrival, the baby in her womb leapt and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit, exclaiming, “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the child you will bear!” (Luke 1:42)
Keep in mind, Mary had only just found out about her pregnancy. It would have been so easy, so understandable to be overwhelmed, afraid, or distressed. Mary had not even yet wed her husband, Joseph. And yet, watch the trust and confidence in her response:
“My soul glorifies the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior.” Luke 1:46-47
They celebrated the work of God together. Mary stayed with Elizabeth for three months. Imagine the conversations they must’ve had: prophecies fulfilled, the future of the Kingdom of God, what would their sons’ lives look like?
Mary made a choice to rejoice in the story God was writing, a story of trust and celebrating the work of God.
Today, how does Mary’s story encourage you to trust God? What is your response to the story God is writing in your life? Take a moment to reflect on how you can glorify in the Lord and rejoice in God today.
https://bible.com/bible/114/luk.1.46-47.NKJV
Prayer: God, You are worthy of all my trust. I want to trust you like Mary did, totally unfazed by changes to my plans and able to rejoice in You no matter what! Thank You for sending me a Savior to give me life and hope and a future. I know I can trust You! In Jesus’s name, Amen.
Note after sharing the devotional: As a confession, this may be the very first time I’ve ever looked at this set of text, which as alluded to further above I have been familiar with my whole life, from the perspective of a Bible study/devotional. Mary was given a very unique assignment: be the mother of the son of God.
Before I continue, I need to quickly dispel the myth that the Catholic Church at large has circulated for centuries, the false idea that Mary is the mother of God in a divine sense. Jesus was fully Man; therefore Mary was His mother in that sense. However, the church’s early days saw the assimilation of a lot of Roman pagan elements, including the divine idea of the mother of God, from which that Roman pagan religious system had a lot of goddesses. Neither was Mary immaculate like Jesus was. Mary was a sinner, just like the rest of us. But she was obedient to the Lord in being willing to carry Him in her womb for nine months and then raise him with the help of her husband Joseph (who by the way was not his father). To be honest, I’m not sure what is so hard to understand about a mortal woman (a sinner, no less) who simply obeyed God by undertaking this once-in-an-eternity assignment. To deify Mary robs the very truth of nothing being impossible with God, which Gabriel the messenger told Mary just a few verses before this day’s devotional’s focus verse:
“For with God nothing will be impossible.””Luke 1:37 NKJV
As for the devotional’s closing questions, there is a lot of carryover also with a couple recent sermons preached at my church, titled God Doing Extraordinary Things Through Ordinary People. I plan to post those soon as well. The Bible is full of ordinary people that God used to do great things. And the lesson in all this is to illustrated that these great feats of wonder were done only by God and not by us. I’ll repeat this when I share the sermons, because my pastor preached about this as well, but one of the most obvious spots in scripture occurred when God was raising (or more accurately, whittling down) an army to defeat the Midianites, who had been oppressing the Israelites at the time.
First, the call to Gideon:
“Now the Angel of the Lord came and sat under the terebinth tree which was in Ophrah, which belonged to Joash the Abiezrite, while his son Gideon threshed wheat in the winepress, in order to hide it from the Midianites. And the Angel of the Lord appeared to him, and said to him, “The Lord is with you, you mighty man of valor!” Gideon said to Him, “O my Lord, if the Lord is with us, why then has all this happened to us? And where are all His miracles which our fathers told us about, saying, ‘Did not the Lord bring us up from Egypt?’ But now the Lord has forsaken us and delivered us into the hands of the Midianites.” Then the Lord turned to him and said, “Go in this might of yours, and you shall save Israel from the hand of the Midianites. Have I not sent you?” So he said to Him, “O my Lord, how can I save Israel? Indeed my clan is the weakest in Manasseh, and I am the least in my father’s house.” And the Lord said to him, “Surely I will be with you, and you shall defeat the Midianites as one man.””Judges 6:11-16 NKJV
Like Moses had done beforehand, Gideon began to question God’s choice for military leader (but at least stopped questioning and instead believed when God answered Him). God selected an ordinary man to do an extraordinary thing, and this man (Gideon) ultimately said yes. As for the point of ensuring that people would know that it was God and not man who secured Israel’s victory against Midian, God whittled down the army from 32,000 to 300, to go up against 135,000 Midianite warriors:
“And the Lord said to Gideon, “The people who are with you are too many for Me to give the Midianites into their hands, lest Israel claim glory for itself against Me, saying, ‘My own hand has saved me.’”Judges 7:2 NKJV
Before I continue, I want to say that this verse right here is the summary of the point God made regarding why He was about to whittle down the Israelite army. Continuing:
“Now therefore, proclaim in the hearing of the people, saying, ‘Whoever is fearful and afraid, let him turn and depart at once from Mount Gilead.’ ” And twenty-two thousand of the people returned, and ten thousand remained. But the Lord said to Gideon, “The people are still too many; bring them down to the water, and I will test them for you there. Then it will be, that of whom I say to you, ‘This one shall go with you,’ the same shall go with you; and of whomever I say to you, ‘This one shall not go with you,’ the same shall not go.” So he brought the people down to the water. And the Lord said to Gideon, “Everyone who laps from the water with his tongue, as a dog laps, you shall set apart by himself; likewise everyone who gets down on his knees to drink.” And the number of those who lapped, putting their hand to their mouth, was three hundred men; but all the rest of the people got down on their knees to drink water. Then the Lord said to Gideon, “By the three hundred men who lapped I will save you, and deliver the Midianites into your hand. Let all the other people go, every man to his place.” So the people took provisions and their trumpets in their hands. And he sent away all the rest of Israel, every man to his tent, and retained those three hundred men. Now the camp of Midian was below him in the valley.”Judges 7:3-8 NKJV
Ultimately, God delivered the victory:
“It happened on the same night that the Lord said to him, “Arise, go down against the camp, for I have delivered it into your hand. But if you are afraid to go down, go down to the camp with Purah your servant, and you shall hear what they say; and afterward your hands shall be strengthened to go down against the camp.” Then he went down with Purah his servant to the outpost of the armed men who were in the camp. Now the Midianites and Amalekites, all the people of the East, were lying in the valley as numerous as locusts; and their camels were without number, as the sand by the seashore in multitude. And when Gideon had come, there was a man telling a dream to his companion. He said, “I have had a dream: To my surprise, a loaf of barley bread tumbled into the camp of Midian; it came to a tent and struck it so that it fell and overturned, and the tent collapsed.” Then his companion answered and said, “This is nothing else but the sword of Gideon the son of Joash, a man of Israel! Into his hand God has delivered Midian and the whole camp.” And so it was, when Gideon heard the telling of the dream and its interpretation, that he worshiped. He returned to the camp of Israel, and said, “Arise, for the Lord has delivered the camp of Midian into your hand.” Then he divided the three hundred men into three companies, and he put a trumpet into every man’s hand, with empty pitchers, and torches inside the pitchers. And he said to them, “Look at me and do likewise; watch, and when I come to the edge of the camp you shall do as I do: When I blow the trumpet, I and all who are with me, then you also blow the trumpets on every side of the whole camp, and say, ‘The sword of the Lord and of Gideon!’ ” So Gideon and the hundred men who were with him came to the outpost of the camp at the beginning of the middle watch, just as they had posted the watch; and they blew the trumpets and broke the pitchers that were in their hands. Then the three companies blew the trumpets and broke the pitchers—they held the torches in their left hands and the trumpets in their right hands for blowing—and they cried, “The sword of the Lord and of Gideon!” And every man stood in his place all around the camp; and the whole army ran and cried out and fled. When the three hundred blew the trumpets, the Lord set every man’s sword against his companion throughout the whole camp; and the army fled to Beth Acacia, toward Zererah, as far as the border of Abel Meholah, by Tabbath.”Judges 7:9-22 NKJV
As I’m reading through it this time (the sermons at my church didn’t go this far into the passage), it not only reveals the detail and the awesomeness of God’s power, but also humbles me because these event completely challenge any and every expectation of how I expect things to work, based on experience and prior understanding. It’s a failing of mine, because every time I get understanding I want to use it and live off of it. And that’s where I begin to get off the rails.
Two weeks ago, God delivered me from the worst of the sting of this disease I had. In my quiet time with Him, I journaled about an event so mind-boggling and painful that, unbeknownst to me, my continued wrestling with it led a spiritual sword to pierce a certain part of my body. When I finally let it go two weeks ago, that sword finally came out. And I have had to block out that part of my journal because re-reading the truth of what I had written started to put it back into me. This was a case where I had to completely walk away from it. When you forgive, forgive completely. Forgiveness is detox.
This release was so amazing that I think I enjoyed it a little too much. (Now, to be clear, it’s not wrong to enjoy deliverance and to celebrate with God and thank Him for it; in fact, it is right to do so!) But I got sidetracked with other things that weren’t outright evil but also weren’t of the things of God. And then a mini-trial came that left me weakened in a whole different way because I was ill-prepared to defend myself against it. With God’s help, and entirely by His grace, I have largely recovered now a week later. But it does go to show that there is no such thing as “taking a play off,” to borrow from the world of athletics.
The thing is, every breakthrough, while amazing, is but a stepping stone to the next thing. I have other long-standing forgiveness work I still need to do. I don’t know how long this window will remain open. Life gives windows of opportunity for certain things, and if I don’t act within that window, then the opportunity is gone.
I want to believe that I can be used by God for great things. I’m definitely ordinary. Perfect! But the other key is obedience. And I have failed a lot at that in my life, most of the time due to not knowing or understanding (ha, ironic) what my next step is supposed to be (and even understanding what I need to do to find that next step). I remember in 2013, about six months before I got baptized, I was given a boatload of prophecies that made it look like my life was about to be taken in a new direction, and not only so but on the up and up. I believe the only thing I had done at the point was accept an opportunity to co-lead a ministry. The prophecy was filled with all sorts of good things. I remember my response in that time was to write a song response, essentially from the same initial reaction place of folks like Moses and Gideon (and sadly Zechariah, the father of John the Baptist, centuries later). Sadly, I ultimately doubted the prophecies and as such, none of the things that were prophesied came to pass, at least not in that time. Sure, there were some other external factors that occurred when the prophecy was given (perhaps it was instead meant for another guy I knew who only sort of looked like me, or maybe it was still for both of us; regardless, this prophecy certainly came true for him!), but the fact remains that I doubted and disobeyed as a result of that doubt. As such, I didn’t really receive much of anything, as explained by this passage:
“But let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for he who doubts is like a wave of the sea driven and tossed by the wind. For let not that man suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord;”James 1:6-7 NKJV
Even though I was raised by two musical parents (and as such, music and especially music creativity runs in my blood), growing up I wanted to be like Michael Jordan. There was a part of me that understood the desire to be great, and to seek greatness. I’m not athletic. The furthest I ever got in basketball was last man off the bench on the varsity team my senior year (and I was on varsity only because Illinois High School Association rules required that all seniors statewide were to be on varsity and not junior varsity). My junior year, I did get to be good enough to become third or fourth man off the bench on junior varsity, and I had a lot of fun due to having a lot more playing time. (My situation on the baseball team wasn’t too different.) But that was my peak, athletically. I was also blessed to watch both basketball and baseball through mid-childhood and into young-adulthood and watch athletes such as Jordan, Scottie Pippen, Kobe Bryant, Shaquille O’Neal, Tim Duncan, Kevin Garnett, Charles Barkley, Karl Malone, Randy Johnson, Greg Maddux, Ken Griffey Jr, Barry Bonds, Mark McGwire, Roger Clemens, Sammy Sosa, and Pedro Martinez, among countless others. I got to see what greatness could look like. Now, in the middle-age stage of my life, I get to see President Donald J. Trump in action. It’s a different form of greatness, but still greatness nonetheless.
In my post-college career, I did finally begin to embrace my musicianship and learn to really appreciate the greatness of all manner of composers and performers: J.S. Bach, Domenico Scarlatti, Ludwig van Beethoven, Franz Schubert, Frederic Chopin, Felix Mendelssohn, Franz Liszt, Cesar Franck, Charles V. Stanford, Herbert Howells, George Gershwin, Scott Joplin, Irving Berlin, Keith Jarrett, and countless others there as well. But as I learned the hard way in 2019, through life challenges but also the result of other forms of disobedience, music (as much as I loved it) was not going to be my money-maker. My sense is that there was a chance I could have made something more out of it than I did, but the truth is that I didn’t put in nearly enough effort to make it whatever I had hoped it could be. (Sure, I had almost no understanding about the effort required, even with the tips and tricks that I was given, but the overarching point still stands: I didn’t do enough let alone of the right things, to make a living as a career musician financially worthwhile.)
Interestingly, I believe that I am once again standing at the precipice of another career/calling-related shift. I’m applying to work and still struggling to figure out what I really want to be “when I grow up.” Bearing all of my previous disobediences in mind, what does my response now need to look like? That’s what this day’s devotional is asking. It does require trusting God in new ways. It does require continued obedience to the things He has commanded me over the last year (and counting):
- Do not long for the former years
- Rejoice
- Eliminate distractions
- Be on guard regarding temptation
Additionally, I have been in a sense told yet again that reunions are still off the table. This may not be a “rest of my life” boundary, but it is certainly milestone-dependent at the very least. I need to show God that I can obey these things, and to do so consistently. (I’ve not shown it regarding the latter point.)
Then there’s a sense of honoring my wife and pleasing her as well. She wants me to pick a career. But not music. But honestly, regarding that directive, I don’t know how to get myself to do that. I believe I’ve been saying the right things, although I’ve also been honest with her regarding articulating the struggle as best as I’ve been able to understand it. And the Bible has some things to say about it:
“Husbands, love your wives and do not be bitter toward them.”Colossians 3:19 NKJV
“Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself for her,”Ephesians 5:25 NKJV
“So husbands ought to love their own wives as their own bodies; he who loves his wife loves himself.”Ephesians 5:28 NKJV
“But if anyone does not provide for his own, and especially for those of his household, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever.”I Timothy 5:8 NKJV
That’s some cold, hard truth. All I know is that I’m doing the best I can, but I also recognize that there are times my best is not—and cannot be—good enough. This is very possibly one of them. And that’s my answer to the devotional’s question. Yes, I choose to trust God. But I don’t know what my calling is. (I used to think I knew!) Is it career-related? Is it ministry-related? I’m sure that the answer is “yes,” but I don’t have the “how.” Having grown up not only in the situation that I grew up in, but also the precise timing of things, really negatively affected my ability to step up and do things productively. At my current age, despite being healed in all sorts of other areas of life, this is one area that I haven’t been able to get figured out. And now, the way the world seems to work, it’s all on me to somehow figure it out.
But if I know both my life situation to date, plus the God of the Bible, it’s not all on me; it’s all on Him. But I need to seek Him and obey whatever He says to do. Only in this and through this, can I truly do all things through Christ who strengthens me, as per below:
“I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.”Philippians 4:13 NKJV
I had a dream a couple months ago where I was set to perform a set of brand-new compositions on a nice new piano that I had just been gifted. However, as I was set to play, I noticed that the piano lid was closed. So I went to go open it, as is standard procedure for a solo piano concert. As I approached the piano lid, I noticed that it was covered in books and papers. I couldn’t lift the lid without first removing all the items on top. As I was doing so (an unexpected surprise because I was supposed to begin playing this concert!), the emcee began speaking (presumably about me, perhaps as a way of introducing me and filling in the time while I was cleaning off the piano top) and only wrapped up once I had gotten off the last of the books and papers. I never got most of what the emcee had said, but I did hear the last two words: “…and failure.” That was weird. I then began playing and got through two of my pieces before I woke up.
Weeks later, as I worked through forgiving different people, I believe God led me, through His Word, to the aforementioned failure as mentioned in the dream. It was something I realized where I needed forgiveness. There was a specific failure, among several, that stood out among the rest during my time as a career musician. I was honest with God and myself about it. I agreed that I was completely in the wrong. I apologized to God and asked forgiveness. I believe that I have received it.
Years ago, a few months prior to meeting my wife, I had had a dream that I was traveling with a female traveling companion, someone I used to know in my far-distant past. (The dream framed this as a long-overdue catching-up.) As we were traveling, we stopped at the house of a friend of mine. She socialized with my friend while I went straight to the back to unpack my backpack. It turned out that there was a lot of trash that I had accumulated that I needed to throw out. Additionally, I had pulled off my baseball cap that I had been wearing, and that too had trash inside that I needed to get rid of. Meanwhile, my female traveling companion and my buddy started playing the piano and singing songs from the Great American songbook. They had wrapped up by the time I had returned from dealing with the trash that I had accumulated, and then my traveling companion and I had left and were on our way to wherever we were headed. After this, I woke up. And then a few months later, God introduced me to my wife.
So, bearing these things in mind, neither it nor I are hopeless. God is doing something. I only have inklings of it, and it’s been frustrating to have so little in terms of these inklings inasmuch as I have to find a way to communicate this to her. But even in this, I believe that even the Lord has communicated something else to me to warm my heart. The short version is that He will help us.
That’s as far as I’ve gotten in terms of my response to God regarding the story He is writing. It’s gratitude for what He has done for me over all the years that I’ve been alive, and gratitude that not only has He not forgotten me but also that He is working on something even as I write. How do glorify Him? I do this by thanking and praising Him, by repenting, by forgiving and handing over to Him more of the logs still stuck in my eyes (ultimately handing all of them over), by rejoicing always, by abiding in Him and not getting too satisfied with myself every time I have a new breakthrough, by letting go of all desires to relive the past under the false hope that it somehow will change both the past and the present, by letting go even of any type of opportunity to catch up with folks from my past unless the Lord Himself green-lights it, by eliminating all forms of distractions (which honestly I’ve failed to do because I haven’t really figured out what the boundary line needs to look like, and where it needs to be located), by standing up against and resisting temptation and all sources of it, and by not slipping back into ingratitude. As future posts will show, there will be a few more items to add to the list, but I will allow these posts to be cumulative and introduce each new thing at its appointed time.
Finally, I’ll close with this image, as it hits home across decades of questions and prayers:
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