Advent Lesson

"Doing the will of God leaves me no time for disputing about His plans."  ~George MacDonald

I love Advent.  For those of you who might not be familiar, it's a season of anticipation and preparation for Christmas.  It begins four Sundays before Christmas and lasts until Christmas Eve.  Each of the Sundays you focus on a different aspect of faith:  Hope, Love, Joy and Peace.

This year I read a couple of different Advent reflections (you'll hear about those in a Book Club report to come in a week or so), and the same idea kept jumping out at me.  Usually when that happens, it means I better pay attention.

We've all heard the Christmas story.  This year, I kept coming back to Mary's response to the Angel, Gabriel, who told her that God had called her to a most amazing, but peculiar, vocation.  She would be the virgin mother to the Son of God.

If I'm being honest, had Gabriel shown up to me, my reaction would probably have been something along the lines of, "Yea, right.  No way.  Where's Ashton?  I'm being punked!"  Clearly, this is why God didn't choose someone like me.

But Mary?  Her answer was simple.  "I am the Lord's servant.  May your word to me be fulfilled."  She did not reject the idea.  She did not say that it was crazy.  She did not politely decline because she had other plans for her life.  She did not worry about what people would think, or how it would impact her upcoming marriage to Joseph, or how she would have to have a baby in barn, or how painful it would be for her to watch what would happen to that same baby 33 years later on a  hill called Golgatha.  She just submitted to the plan that God had for her life (which happened to also be the plan for the salvation of the world).

Even though God's plan for most of us is not to give birth to Jesus, he has plans for us just the same.  And he reveals these plans to us in different ways.  Have I ever responded to anything in my life the way Mary did?  Probably not.  I worry about how hard something will be, what other people will think, how it might effect my bank account of my comfort level or my ability to run into Mr. Right on the street.  I worry too much about my plan, and my picture of how I want my life to look, that I lose the focus that I'm called to have.  The focus on the fact that I'm God's servant, and that what I should want the most is to follow his plan for me.  Even if that means doing something that's difficult or takes me out of my comfort zone or doesn't fit into the picture I have painted of what I want my life to look like.

Because clearly God's plans are far better than my own.  He proved that when a baby was born in a manger over 2000 years ago.  And it's still true today.

Advent lesson over.  Class dismissed.  Happy Christmas Eve to everyone!