As we reread the familiar Christmas story from Luke this year in our new and unfamiliar surroundings, I was looking for the LORD’s presence to comfort me and His voice to speak to me. What I found was a new perspective for 2010 and our present reality based on a verse that it would be easy to overlook as an insignificant detail in the Christmas narrative. After Gabriel visits Mary and gives her the prophetic promise for her future as the mother of the Christ, Mary excitedly visits her cousin Elizabeth. Elizabeth is also pregnant with John, the one who ‘will prepare the way of the Lord’. The Holy Spirit surely filled John even from the womb because he jumped inside of Elizabeth as Mary voiced the angel’s promise to her cousin. Elizabeth is filled with joy and speaks the following blessing over the young Mary:
“Blessed is she who has believed that what the LORD has said to her will be accomplished.” Luke 1:45

Wow – what a beautiful statement. This simple blessing grabbed me in a whole new way this Christmas season as I reflected on what Elizabeth DOES NOT say. She did not say, “Blessed is she who is worthy of being the mother of the Most High” or “Blessed is she who will be a great mother to the Savior of the world”. She does not praise Mary’s character or her ability or even her God-given gifts…she praises her belief- her faith. She declares an important truth – Mary is blessed because she trusts not in her own ability, but in the LORD’s ability to accomplish His good will.

I have found my mind wandering back to this verse many times over the past couple of weeks, pondering the implications for my own life. Mary was a blessed woman because she clung to hope in the great ability of her King. What about me? What am I clinging to? As I step back and think about the ‘bigger picture’ in Sudan, it is an overwhelming scene filled with need, depravity, grim prospects, and a whole lot of work. I have very little hope in and of myself. Even today, as we attended church in Kampala, I heard a Sudanese woman discussing the upcoming political elections and current tensions increasing the possibility of civil war yet again. That’s not an encouraging message.

On a micro level, we are trying to learn a foreign language that is a tonal system incorporating 12 vowels, living in a mud hut, and searching for a place and an identity among a strange culture and a completely new way of life.. Overwhelming to say the least.. But what was Mary blessed by? Her faith in the great character of her God. HE is able. HE is good. HE is faithful to bring all things together for good. HE is the one who can accomplish the things He has spoken. I cannot. I have nothing. I am weak, wounded, sick, sore and broken. If I struggle to accomplish great things, I may try for a long time and only succeed in making myself tired. But “blessed is she who has believed that the LORD will accomplish what He has said.” That means that all I have to do in order to be blessed is to remember what the LORD has said – His promises – and to believe them.

Some of these promises are universal; things like ‘I will never leave you nor forsake you’ and ‘all things are possible through Christ Jesus,’ while others are more personal. The personal ones are the quiet promises that God speaks to us in the secret places of our hearts as He affirms the desires He gave to us. For me, I have to believe that He will do the things my heart desires…like establishing Sudan as a new ‘home’ in my heart…or building friendships here among the Didinga and the other missionaries…or learning the depths of a new language and culture…and helping me find a creative outlet that can bless others. I struggle to believe that God can and will bring these things to pass. And sometimes, I get impatient and I try to force them too quickly.

But as I remember Mary’s character and her courage, I can take heart. She was so young, but so humble and so faithful. She did not protest the word of the LORD nor did she impatiently force His promises into being. She simply believed that what the LORD had said to her would be accomplished. And she was blessed abundantly.

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