Highly Favored

Sometimes expectations can be hard. Especially as a teenager, so many people have them set for you. Parents, Teachers, Leaders, God, The World.... A lot of people have lowered the expectations that apply to us, they have waved us on as irrelevant until we hit a certain age. When other people do that, it is easy to not want to exceede these expectations, or even meet them at all. So many years of young people's lives are wasted because we don't think we can do anything until we go to college and get a job. Then when people come along that do want to challenge you to do greater things, you are so caught up in the mediocrity around you and just want to be like everyone else. "I'm too young", "Why can't I just be like everyone else?" "Just leave me alone, I can't do that!". Some of the excuses we use.. There have been people in history who have done amazing things at young ages, but the one worth mentioning right now, at this time of year especially- is Mary. The mother of a savior. She was only 14 or 15 years old, expected to be married to a man she barely knew, and then out of nowhere God choses her to help deliver the most important child ever. She knew it wasn't going to be easy, but she trusted God completely. I love what she says once the angel explains things to her.

“I am the Lord’s servant,” Mary answered. “May your word to me be fulfilled.”

If we could all have that same attitude, how many amazing things could be done in this world?

In the sixth month of Elizabeth’s pregnancy, God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth, a town in Galilee, to a virgin pledged to be married to a man named Joseph, a descendant of David. The virgin’s name was Mary. The angel went to her and said, “Greetings, you who are highly favored! The Lord is with you.”

Mary was greatly troubled at his words and wondered what kind of greeting this might be. But the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary; you have found favor with God. You will conceive and give birth to a son, and you are to call him Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David,and he will reign over Jacob’s descendants forever; his kingdom will never end.”

“How will this be,” Mary asked the angel, “since I am a virgin?”

The angel answered, “The Holy Spirit will come on you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the holy one to be born will be called the Son of God. Even Elizabeth your relative is going to have a child in her old age, and she who was said to be unable to conceive is in her sixth month. For no word from God will ever fail.”

“I am the Lord’s servant,” Mary answered. “May your word to me be fulfilled.”