Mary

Huddle Up, Planners!

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Hey Planners! Huddle Up!

You’ve been on my mind this week. 2024 has not been kind to you. I feel it with you. In this huddle, let’s acknowledge a few things.

First of all, we’re not alone. We all get it. That trip you had planned for the second week of October turned out to be a totally different trip. And not only that, the work event two weeks prior that had been on the calendar since January had to be cancelled. That event was supposed to help you feel like you weren’t losing your mind due to Debby’s rudeness. Seriously, three’s enough.

Second, whatever happened to the answer to not failing is having a plan. That’s what they tell us. “Failing to plan is planning to fail.” You had a plan to retire in that house. You had a plan to grow your business. You had a plan to provide for generations in your family. You thought it was The Plan. Were you wrong?

Driving home from church this morning I wondered, “What character in the biblical narrative could planners relate to? Someone who probably felt like they were doing everything right, had lived as surrendered as possible, and yet felt like their foundation crumbled.”

I can’t say for certain she was a planner, but the person that made me stop rolling through the profiles was Mary, Jesus’ mother. It’s mind blowing to consider the change of plans she navigated, how many times she felt the earth shake.

  • The pregnancy and marriage phase
  • The parenting phase
  • The empty nest phase
  • The losing a child not once but twice phase

I can’t imagine anything about her life felt normal.

Normal. That’s the word I said to God this morning on my drive to church. Which made me laugh and spew, “Why do I get caught up in expecting normal? Who am I to demand whatever that means?”

Planners, hear this. The security and peace you seek in the black and white of the bullet points of your 5-year-plan isn’t permanent. When it turns into gray or is completely erased, the stark reality of eternity is brought back into focus. And it’s good for us.

Don’t hear me dismiss the emotions of confusion and disappointment and frustration and anger. Those are normal. It’s not recorded; but in her humanity, I imagine Mary walked through all of those too.

Fortunately for her, Jesus was with her. Fortunately for us, just like her when he left her the second time, he doesn’t leave us alone when our plans disintegrate.

Did you hear that? He hasn’t left you. He’s with us in this huddle. And as only he can do, he’s simultaneously elsewhere working on our eternity.

Yes, it’s earthshaking to not see what’s next, to be yanked back into considering eternity. It’s disturbing to feel like you messed up so bad that recovery isn’t possible, that what’s in front of you is all there is. So let me remind you.

He sees it all.

He holds the world.

He is in the rebuilding business.

His plan is in tack.

Here’s what I want to offer you. I’m not going to break this huddle. Instead, I invite you to stay here as long as you need. Sit down if you need to. Lie down even. Put your body in a position that best says, “I’m not going to take another step until you show me which direction. I know because you are big enough to work on the eternal that you have what I need in the present. Your plan is mine. It’s enough. I’m with Mary. No matter how many times the earth quakes and my plans shatter, I am blessed that you know me, see me, stay with me, and let me call you mine.”

Photo by Mark Vihtelic on Unsplash

God’s 2019 Gifts

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My Advent devotional this morning focused on this verse:
But Mary was treasuring up all these things in her heart and meditating on them. Luke 2:19 CSB
The devotion challenged that it is important to store up the mountaintop experiences in life in order to recall them for the tough experiences. Mary seemed to realize this at a young age.
In the hardest moments of our lives, we need to remember the victory of Jesus and recall all the ways we’ve seen His goodness. When you experience God’s faithfulness in your life, take a step back and store it up as treasure in your heart. Think of it often. When your toughest days come, like Mary, you will be able to endure. @youversion reading plan
I took this challenge and created an exercise. The exercise was to write down all the gifts God has given me this year. To help me remember, I looked back through my journal (an example of why journaling is a good thing). At completion, my list was twenty deep and filled up the page. That’s a lot of goodness. This exercise could be very encouraging and even worshipful. What gifts has God given you this year? How will you treasure them?

Mary’s Sanctification

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The title of the day 11 Advent devotional I’m reading was “What’s On The Other Side of Your ‘Yes’?”

I’ve thought about the fact that Mary said yes. Rather quickly, by the way (see Luke 1). But this devotional made me think about how, like Mary, our current acceptance is limited to the present. We place our faith in surrendering to what’s in front of us. But we have no idea what’s coming down the road, what’s on the other side. Mary heard what the angel said about the son she would have, but I wonder how much she understood how many yeses were ahead.

  • Yes, I’ll marry a man who’s thought twice.
  • Yes, I’ll run for my son’s life to another country.
  • Yes, I’ll give grace to my son when I don’t understand him.
  • Yes, I’ll let The Father defend his son against the enemy’s lies.
  • Yes, I’ll watch him be crucified.

Each yes was a new challenge, a deeper victory, a fuller revelation.

The teenager who birthed Jesus wasn’t ready to watch him be tortured. She got there through the transformtion of her every yes. A theological word for that tansformation is sanctification. In his book Awe, Paul David Tripp defined sanctification as a process that works the radical transformation of hearts. Mary’s sanctification came through repeated yeses.

What yes is God asking from you right now? What if you said yes for no other reason but to take one more step in your sanctification? Why not see what’s on the other side of your yes?