And Mary said, “Behold, I am a servant of the Lord; Let it be to me according to your word.” And the angel departed from her.-Luke 1:38 (ESV)
This morning, my friend Mark and I started working through Luke’s gospel. Our plan is to read one chapter each day, and discuss it. Mary’s response to the angel Gabriel stood out to me. Gabriel told her that God’s Spirit would overshadow her, and she would become pregnant with the Messiah. She responded by saying, “I am God’s servant. Let it be as you say.”
In the chaos of the world, I become frantic and try to control my circumstances. If I am honest, I want to control everything, yet the harder I try to manage the world, the more hopeless I can feel. The truth is that I cannot fix COVID-19, or politics, or Christianity. Most days, I cannot even govern myself.
Mary’s prayer, “Let it be to me according to your word,” seems risky. It asks me to trust that God is loving and that he knows more than I do. It requires me to admit my powerlessness. It obliges me to let God be God.
God,
Every day, the world seems more and more fragmented.
My internal controller tries to hold it all together,
rather than allowing you to run the universe.
In a disintegrated world, trust is hard.
In the midst of pain, hope is harder.
In this moment and the next,
let me echo Mary’s simple prayer,
“I am your servant.
Let it be according to your word.”
Jason Kanz 