An Invitation to a God-Inspired Plan

My oldest daughter is busy with wedding plans. Conversations involving tulle, guest lists and cupcake flavors are the norm around our house.

Not only wedding plans, but life plans. She and her fiancé talk about life after college graduation, about careers and setting up an apartment. They talk about going down to one car to cut costs. They talk about living overseas. Important after-the-wedding-and real-life-begins conversations.

Hanging around a soon-to-be-married couple makes me wonder what Mary experienced when the angel showed up and told her that she was about to become the mother of His Son, because Mary was also engaged to be married, betrothed to Joseph. Wedding plans were in full swing. Life plans were being made. Mary was counting the days until she would be the wife of a carpenter in the small town of Nazareth.

Then the angel showed up with his Fear Not message.

Have you ever had your carefully laid plans turned upside down with the realization that God was inviting you to a plan and a purpose that was bigger than you ever imagined?

To Mary it seemed like the invitation came out of nowhere, interrupting her ordinary existence, but in reality, God had been planning that day for centuries, orchestrating and positioning Mary to be in the right place at the right time.

So it is with us.

God is still in the invitation-extending business. He invites. Like Mary, we accept and then begin an adventure we never dreamed possible--a mind-blowing adventure that blasts our tightly held plans to smithereens.

But this is an important truth to remember:

God never calls us to His plan and purpose without providing His presence and His power to bring it about. (You might want to read that again.)

His presence + His power = His purpose and plan. Guaranteed. *

In regard to his presence, the name of Jesus, Emmanuel, means exactly that. God with me. With me to do what he is calling me (and you) to do.

In regard to power, Mary heard the angel say, "And the power of the Most High will overshadow you." The overshadowing power of God. I like that. I want that. With God on my side, nothing is impossible. (See also Luke 1:37.)

Like Mary, I can carry inside me a God-sized purpose.

In regard to his plan, Mary was extolled by her cousin Elizabeth, "Blessed is she who has believed that what the Lord has said to her will be accomplished” (Luke 1:45 NIV).

Lord, Emmanuel, help me believe that you will accomplish your plan in me through your presence and with your power.

_______

*Thought from Pursuing the Christ by Jennifer Kennedy Dean.