We must never loose sight of the fact that God engaged Mary and Joseph in a life story they did not fully understand, after all who could understand what God was up to when He decides to use an unwed teenage girl to give birth out of wedlock. It is nothing less than…
Scandalous!
I’m sure Mary and Joseph wanted a quiet, peaceful life in the suburbs of Judea with kids, grandkids and perhaps a bit of prosperity to know they were being blessed. They got something quite different. This new story would define Mary’s life and she would carry it with her all her life… and beyond.
Did God ask too much of Mary? Does God ask too much… of us?
I believe Mary’s trust in God outweighed her doubts and fears. WHY?
What did Mary have that enabled her to give up her comfortable life for a life of compelling love and hope? A life of quiet survival for one of eternal significance.
But then I’m also forced to ask myself ”why do my doubts and fears confine me and my life to
One of the main ways we sabotage ourselves is that we don’t dream enough or desire enough.
In the words of C.S. Lewis, we are too easily pleased:
“We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.”
Today, sit with the pain of unrealized dreams, unrecognized opportunities and unembraced potential of Christmas.
What is God asking of YOU?
Sermon Notes 12.11.11 Does God ask too much
Worship 12.11.11 Third Advent Mary
No, I don’t think that “we don’t dream enough or desire enough”; I think we don’t surrender enough!
I think, in the hubris of self-centeredness, we think we know what we should dream and what we should desire for ourselves and for others. How “little”-sighted of us! How dare we presume to tell God, the Omnipotent, Omniscient, Omnipresent God, Creator of all, that we know better than He what dreams and desires we want for our lives, our short lives, here on this earth! How restrictive of God we are! How patient He is with us. How sad for each of us He must be; yet out of love, He allows us to choose.
We haven’t the slightest idea what dreams and desires God not only has for us but what dreams and desires He would give us if only we asked Him, if only we trusted Him, if only we surrendered, totally and completely, all control of our dreams and desires to Him, allowing Him to gift us with those dreams and desires that only a loving, heavenly Father can and would provide to His children, especially in order to enable us to fulfill “the purpose that He has for our lives” and in order for us to bring Him all honor and glory.
Oh…if we would just surrender “our” dreams and desires for His…oh…if we trusted Him completely and totally enough to both know and believe that His love would give us nothing but the best…oh…”we of little faith, [trust, and surrender].”
At this season of Christmas and as we think about, see, and open Christmas gifts, how can we not contemplate the gifts — in the form of answered-dreams and desires — that are there for and that God would give just for the asking, an asking based on and filled with total trust and complete surrender?
“Thy will be done”…our surrendered-hearts should ever say and mean.
No…God does not ask too much of us!
God is not the One at fault…He does not ask too much…we choose to give too little.
God is the wisest of all “bestest” teachers…as do all wise and “bestest” teachers, God sets His expectations high and challenges His students to go “further up and further in” while rising to and surpassing His expectations and challenges, which are crafted and designed to prepare each for life in an eternity with God Himself…but it is the student, each student, who has to make the choice, each student who has to decide to “take a leap of faith” and “rise to the occasion”…and as do all wise and “bestest” teachers, God has promised that He will never forsake us and that He will help us “carry our yoke” if, when “weary and heavy-laden,” we call upon Him to do so.
What more, when facing His challenges, can anyone ask and expect than to know that God is ever-present and ever-faithful?
No…God doesn’t ask too much…we choose to trust too little…we choose to not have “faith the size of a mustard seed.”