Routine and order and basic ordinary rule my life. Calculated nap schedules and arranged outings are my jam. Making plans and pursuing those plans make me feel like I’m in control. Like I’m the one in charge of my life: where I go, what I do, who I see.
I love planned spontaneity: this idea that I have scheduled an hour or two to do something, I just don’t know what yet. That’s about as “crazy” as I like to get. Yeah, I know. Not crazy at all. Anything out of the ordinary or unplanned throws everything off-kilter, and I get into a funk.
No, this wasn’t what I planned. No, I don’t have time for this.
And my bad mood continues until I feel like I have “regained control” and the train is back on its tracks.
Hindsight is Always Clear
When I look at my life, and specifically at the years already behind me, I see a pattern. I notice that in the moments I felt the most “out of control,” God was most evident. That when everything was swirling around me chaotically like debris in a dust storm, God showed up mightily, right in the middle. When I finally said “Yes Lord,” opened my hands, and relinquished control to Him, God happened and peace calmed the storms.
In all of the instances I’ve said yes: to a new location for raising our family; to a teaching job I didn’t think I was going to take; to God’s plans for how He wanted to grow our family (when I had finally surrendered the plans for how I wanted to do it). Yes, yes, yes. Over and over again, laying down my plans for His plans.
And did endings suddenly turn out the way I thought—all happy and smudge-free— now that I had said yes and given my plans to God? Nope. Because that’s not how God works. Thank you, God, for that. But where hindsight is 20/20, I believe they did become the greatest plans for my life.
Mary’s Greatest Yes
“…nothing is impossible with God.” Luke 1:37 the angel Gabriel tells Mary. Mary is frightened and alone and is trying desperately to retain control of her life. She’s a teen pledged to marry a very righteous man and Gabriel has just given her the shock of a lifetime (I’m going to say that’s an understatement). Mary, in her panic, desperately throws every wrench at Gabriel that she can.
But Gabriel reminds her that even though she is trying desperately to avoid what God is calling her to, Mary is not the one in control. Her thoughts, her opinions, her “plans” are not impossible to get around for God. God is calling her to something even better than she has imagined, and yet, what she thinks is “her control” is ruling her life. But this doesn’t stop God from doing the good work He has for her life, and ultimately the whole world.
“I am the Lord’s servant…May it be to me as you have said.” Mary reluctantly answered the angel.
And just like that, in those simple words, Mary says “yes” to God’s plans. The mother Mary, a teenager, says yes to carrying God’s son in her womb. Can you just imagine the weight she felt? How unprepared she felt? The burden and yet surprising joy as Gabriel, an angel of the Lord, gives her this news?
It’s in her unpreparedness, Mary watches and waits for God.
Darkness covers the night. Black darkness that seems to never end and that stretches on for far too long. A darkness that Mary and Joseph were growing accustomed to as they were rejected from places to stay and might have at times felt forgotten by their maker.
And yet…
God is there, and He does what only God can do. He takes her Yes and creates the impossible.
In the darkest of the night—the longest, loneliest, “out of control” darkness—the Savior as a baby is born to a virgin. The impossible. A breathing, crying, giggling baby is born in the night in the most impossible way. This saving, grace-filled, miraculous baby is God’s own son, born just as every baby is born—helpless, dependent, and needing the care of a willing mother and father. Of a mother and father who have opened their hands and given a “Yes” to God and what He wants to do in and through their lives, putting their hesitancy aside for His glorious plans.
Bottom Line
Isn’t it surreal how saying “yes” is the easiest and yet most difficult thing to do at times? With this yes, you may be blown away at how much God can do with the little we give. The best plans come from even the most unwilling yes. God is able to show up in only the way He can, performing the impossible, when I give God my plans and tell Him to have His way with them.
Even when it feels like there is nothing left to give, and I am on my knees wondering if I can take another step. Notably, when every door seems to slam shut in my face, I give God my yes…and watch how He multiplies this yes to perform the impossible.
Read more about how saying yes to God is the greatest plan.
