Luke 1:38
These are Mary’s well-known words spoken to the angel at the Annunciation as she accepts God’s invitation for a future she has little understanding of. Her one question, “How can this be?” is answered only vaguely, yet she asks no more questions. I can’t help but think that I would have asked a whole list of questions if I were in that situation, seeking to ensure some kind of a sense that everything would work out OK before I said “yes.”
Yet Mary says “yes” without any proof that anything will be OK. Her “yes” is based on her unyielding trust in God, made possible by her deep relationship with Him. She knew, and had experienced, that God was trustworthy because she had seen God’s faithful love for her throughout her short life thus far.
Deep trust in someone is born from a deep love, which comes first from spending time growing in an intimate relationship with that person. Our relationship with our spouse, parent, sibling, or dear friend may give us a taste of that. If we learn from time and experience that they really love us, then we can trust them. And this makes us able to say “yes” to something they may ask without knowing all the details. But all too often people make mistakes, let us down, and hurt us, making it difficult to continue to trust them. Perhaps the comparison is a good one because if we have experienced the feeling of being “let down” by God when things didn’t turn out as we wanted, then we may have difficulty trusting God too.
Yet the call is to look beyond those results and trust “the person” – God. Independent of our circumstances, we are invited to trust that God is with us, still desiring and bringing our best good for us, even when it doesn’t look at all like what we think it should. That is our earthly journey – to trust God so deeply that we surrender all our plans, our control, and our will, to the One who loves us even more than we love ourselves. This does not come without time and intention – time spent learning who God really is, time spent with God listening, time spent growing in relationship with God. It begins with a desire, proceeds with a decision, and continues with our dedication to a lifetime commitment to God.