Mary & God's Interruptions

Hi Friends,

So the Christmas season begins! And as you might imagine, I begin my season pondering an angel's visit to a young girl in Galilee, a girl who would become the mother of Jesus.

Here are some thoughts from the first chapter of Wrestling with Wonder that I'm thinking about this week, and I thought you might find encouraging too.

May God remind you, as he's reminding me, to treasure his interruptions, especially in this season, and to find his promises, plans, and joy in those moments when he interrupts my plans with his own.

Excerpt:

Who is this God? Who is he who interrupts our lives with a call to the impossible?

He is the Dream Taker and the Dream Maker.

The Dream Taker 

“Follow your dreams!” says the world. 

“Die to self,” says God. “Die to your plans, your dreams, your tight-fisted grip on what your life should be.”

  “You can do anything you set your mind to!” says the world.

“I am God, you are not,” says God. “Submit to me, and together we will do everything I set my mind to.”

“Be somebody!” says the world. “Accomplish, achieve, fight your way to the top!”

“Be mine,” says God. “Stop striving and instead rest in my plans for you. Will you be my handmaiden?”

The Dream Maker 

Meditate on these verses. Hear in them God’s call to you:

• “Delight yourselfTake delight in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart” (Psalm 37:4, NIV). Not “Delight yourselfTake delight in the Lord and he will do whatever you want.” Instead, he will give you the desires themselves—new desires, new dreams, his dreams for you. His dreams will becomes yours!
• “For we are God’s masterpiece, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God has already prepared for us to walk around in” (Eph. 2:10, translation mine). He has already favored us with a plan and a call. It’s all prepared. You just have to let go and step forward.
• “I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord (Jeremiah 29:11 NIV, emphasis mine). And they aren’t our plans. They aren’t our dreams. They aren’t our carefully scripted ideas for what our lives should be. Instead, they are a call to the impossible—to loss, confusion, difficulty, misunderstandings, ridicule ... and ultimately to wonder. 

            So in the great calls, and in the small: Rejoice, fear not, and submit. Whisper to God, “Let it be to me as you have said.”