What Mary Did in the Waiting

Time is flying- we are already in the 3rd week of Advent! I hadn’t posted an Advent blog yet because I’d been busy writing the 3-night Advent mission that I gave a couple weeks ago. It was such a wonderful experience that drew me closer to God, and it was a gift to see Him touch so many hearts through the mission. Christmas will be here soon, but for now we still have to wait for it. We are waiting for Christmas, and we are waiting for Jesus’ second coming.

God wants us to draw nearer to Him in the waiting, and there is so much we can do in the waiting so that it is spiritually fruitful. Today I just want to focus on one thing that we can and should do in the waiting. It’s so powerful that it gets its own blog post, and Mary is the one who shows us to do this in the waiting!

Let’s put ourselves in Mary’s shoes for a minute. Mary found herself unexpectedly pregnant, knowing that she was carrying the child of God yet not fully knowing what all was going to transpire. What would that mean for her life? What would it be like to raise the Son of God?? How was she supposed to do that? What would Joseph say about this? What lies ahead???? Think about the uncertainty this woman faced! Even just a fraction of what she was facing would have been more than enough to cause a massive amount of stress.

Yet instead of stressing, asking God a million questions and “demanding” an answer (like I’ve been known to do in my prayer time over the years, yikes), or saying that she couldn’t possibly focus to pray at a time like that, she praises God. Not only does she lean into prayer in her time of waiting, but her prayer is one of praise, even in her unimaginable circumstances. Wow. That takes away all of our excuses, doesn’t it? It surely does for me!

Mary demonstrates this beautifully in her Magnificat, her song of praise, when she visited Elizabeth:

“My soul magnifies the Lord,
 and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior,
 for he has regarded the low estate of his handmaiden.
For behold, henceforth all generations will call me blessed;
 for he who is mighty has done great things for me,
and holy is his name.
 And his mercy is on those who fear him
from generation to generation.
 He has shown strength with his arm,
he has scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts,
 he has put down the mighty from their thrones,
and exalted those of low degree;
 he has filled the hungry with good things,
and the rich he has sent empty away.
 He has helped his servant Israel,
in remembrance of his mercy,
 as he spoke to our fathers,
to Abraham and to his posterity for ever.” 

-Luke 1:46-55 (RSVCE)

That is what Mary was saying in the waiting. How beautiful are Mary’s words, and what a gift that we also can pray with those words and lean into God’s goodness through them. Mary’s Magnificat reminds us that our spirits rejoice in God– how fitting for the 3rd week of Advent, which is about rejoicing! Praising God leads us to true joy because our hearts are made for God, not for things of this world. Mary gets it!

Praise is glorifying God for who He is, period. Praise is simply about God’s all-good nature. He is our King of King, our Lord of Lords, our Prince of Peace. Praising God is good for our hearts- it reminds us of the truth of who He is and shifts our focus back to Him during this busy time of year. God is our constant, our calm, our strength, our everything.

Mary was peaceful and joyful, but it wasn’t because she didn’t have suffering, hardships, or stressful things in her life- it was because she was in right relationship with God, was obedient to His will, and turned to Him in prayer with proper disposition of heart. She let Him drive and loved Him with her life. So the things we decide not to do because we think they are going to be so restrictive to us (prioritizing prayer time, surrendering to God’s will, etc.) are actually the exact things that will bring us the interior peace and joy that we are all craving! Thank you, Mary, for showing us this!  

Praising God in prayer is something we can do in the waiting, and it makes a difference. We can do this in the car while we are on the way to an event, while we are cooking in the kitchen, while we are wrapping presents. We can make it a part of our routine. Any time our thoughts wander to the lengthy to-do list or to stressful things, we can choose to praise God in prayer instead, as Mary showed us. Then that ends up being such a gift to us! I find that stress just melts away when I’m praising God instead of worrying about things. Worrying doesn’t do any good anyway, but entering into prayer turns the moment around and is quite efficacious!

So we make conscious choices to press pause on life and enter into quiet prayer as we finish out Advent, and we can also praise (and thank) God while we are doing other tasks. We continue to keep watch in prayer this Advent season. Then God increases, and we decrease, which is the whole point of Advent. 🙂

God, we praise you for who you are, for your all-good nature. Thank you for the gift of your Son and for all the blessings in our lives. Please help us to finish this season of Advent strong, so that we are closer to you at Christmas than we were at the beginning of Advent. Amen.

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