Eighteen years ago, when I was expecting our first child, What to Expect When You’re Expecting was considered the go-to pregnancy “bible.”I know there’s an app for that now. But, back then, the book provided all sorts of baby advice and trivia. We would know, for instance, that at week 16, the baby would be the size of a … I don’t know… a walnut or a peach or whatever. As first-time parents, we wanted all the information we could get: What kind of diapers should we buy? Who was the best pediatrician in town? When should the baby start solids…and on and on.

But, as we look back to the Nativity story, we see that Mary, the mother of the Messiah, had very little information. The angel Gabriel had told her that the Holy Spirit would overshadow her and that she would give birth to the Son of God, but what about the details? 

Mary didn’t know how Joseph would react to the news of her pregnancy! Surely, there was the possibility that he would divorce her. 

Mary didn’t know how people around her would perceive her. Wouldn’t they keep their daughters away from someone like her – an unwed pregnant teen? What would her own parents say?

Mary didn’t know whether she would be a single mom.

She didn’t know how she would get the resources to take care of her baby.

Yet, when the angel says that “The Holy Spirit will come on you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you…” Mary’s response is remarkable.

She doesn’t say, “Give me two business days to get back to you.” She doesn’t use the classic Christian excuse of, “I don’t feel called” or “This isn’t the ‘season’”

She simply says, “I am the Lord’s servant. May your Word to me be fulfilled.” (Luke 1:38)

Some Bible translations capture her words as: 

“Be it unto me according to Your Word.” (Luke 1:38)

This is a declaration of stunning courage and profound humility. Here was God asking a teenage girl to be the instrument for the incarnation of His Son, and she responds in joyful surrender.

The beautiful Christmas song “Mary, Did You Know?” poses several rhetorical questions to Mary. While Mary seemed to have understood the big picture—that she had been chosen to bear the Messiah—she didn’t have too many details.

Mary didn’t know what the next few days, weeks, and months would bring. She had no inkling about what lay ahead. 

Yet Mary glorified God through her surrender, even when she didn’t know.

In the midst of uncertainty, she trusted the Word of God. 

She didn’t wonder and worry. She simply worshipped and welcomed God’s will.

She didn’t have the game plan, but she glorified God.

Friend, do you sometimes find yourself in a place where you don’t know? We may not have the pieces figured out. We don’t know how we’ll manage the budget. We don’t know when the job or the admission will come through. We don’t know when that pregnancy test will be positive. We don’t know if the prodigal child will return. We don’t know how a health crisis will turn out. We don’t know how long that chronic pain will last. 

But in the midst of that uncertainty, can we submit to God?  Can we say with humility, “Be it unto me according to Your Word”? Can we declare with “Not my will but Yours be done”? God doesn’t just know the story—He writes it.

There’s a little chorus I remember from my childhood which goes:

 

I know who holds the future, And I know he holds my hand;

With God things don’t just happen ev’rything by Him is planned.

So as I face tomorrow with its problems large and small,

I’ll trust the God of miracles, Give to Him my all!

 

Mary glorified God through her surrender, even when she didn’t know what lay ahead. And as she did, God did a miracle within her that changed the course of history.

Today, can we praise Him through the unknowns of our lives? Even as we surrender to His good, perfect, and pleasing will, He works in ways far beyond what we ask or imagine.

 

 

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