SAY YES

In the study of identity, we learn that who we are is not about anything we have done, but who God is and what He has done for us. When our identity is wrapped up in our workplaces, school, home or circumstances, we will be disappointed and discouraged when those things change. When we lean into an identity that is rooted firmly in who God says we are and what Jesus has done for us, what happens around us will not change or challenge our joy and peace.

Mary was a teenager waiting to get married to a carpenter. God revealed himself to Mary, and he has also revealed himself to us. He is the God of the impossible; he always has been. He is the God who called us to receive Him, to abandon fear, to release our dreams and embrace His. 

So what will be our answer? Mary’s was a resounding, “Yes!” “Behold the maidservant of the Lord!  Let it be to me according to your word.” She proclaimed herself fully belonging to God — his slave, his servant, his handmaiden, one with no rights of her own, no separate life, no eight-to-five job with the rest of her time being her own. She chose to be a person who fully, wholly, belonged to her Master.

She surrendered. And she didn’t need great understanding, or to have everything all figured out, or to see God’s plan from beginning to end. She had no idea what her surrender would really mean. She didn’t know it would lead to a manger, to a cross. But she did know that God called her to lay down her dreams and plans in order to embrace His. And she knew there would be a cost.