May Your Word to Me Be Fulfilled

 I will offer You my grateful heart, for I am Your unique creation, filled with wonder and awe.
    You have approached even the smallest details with excellence;
    Your works are wonderful;
I carry this knowledge deep within my soul.
    You see all things; nothing about me was hidden from You
As I took shape in secret,
    carefully crafted in the heart of the earth before I was born from its womb.

You see all things;
    You saw me growing, changing in my mother’s womb;
Every detail of my life was already written in Your book;
    You established the length of my life before I ever tasted the sweetness of it.
Your thoughts and plans are treasures to me, O God! I cherish each and every one of them!
    How grand in scope! How many in number! 

(Psalm 139:14-17, The Voice)

 

 So I went down to the potter's house, and there he was working at his wheel. And the vessel he was making of clay was spoiled in the potter's hand, and he reworked it into another vessel, as it seemed good to the potter to do.

 

Then the word of the Lord came to me:“O house of Israel, can I not do with you as this potter has done? declares the Lord. Behold, like the clay in the potter's hand, so are you in my hand, O house of Israel. 

 (Jeremiah 18:3-6, ESV)

Annunciation to Mary – Gabriel and Mary Watercolor, Minimalist Christian Art 

https://www.etsy.com/shop/FaithArtCreation?listing_id=4360390701&from_page=listing 

 

“How will this be,” Mary asked the angel, “since I am a virgin?”

 

The angel answered, “The Holy Spirit will come on you, 

and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. 

So the holy one to be born 

will be called the Son of God. . . 

For no word from God will ever fail.” 

“I am the Lord’s servant,” Mary answered. 

 “May your word to me be fulfilled.” 

Then the angel left her.

(Luke 2:34-35, 37-38, NIV)

 

'I am his project' - those were the words on Mary Alice's bookmark, but they were the belief of her heart, too, and however great the problems in her life, He would continue to work on that project and bring the work to completion. 

AI generated

 

Paul, the Apostle, had a similar understanding and so he knew that though he was in Nero's prison he was not Nero's prisoner, but the prisoner of Christ Jesus. Any other arrest or imprisonment was irrelevant. A light shown in the cell.

 

In the late evening a believer looked over the day and was discouraged, but his Father spoke to comfort him. 

 

'In the early morning did you not bear your beloved ones on your heart? Did you not offer to Me every hour of the day, every touch on other lives, every letter to be written, everything to be done? As the hours passed over you, perhaps you did forget, but is it My custom to forget?  

Amy Carmichael  

 

Lord you never forget me, even though I often forget: I am your project. (Northumbria Aiden readings, Dec.10)

Humility and Happiness, an Interview with Andrew Murray

(An interview with Andrew Murray from my imagination using his book Humility, Chapter 11)

MCF:  How can we find pleasure in our weakness or happiness in humility?  How do we enter into this "new stage in relation to our trials," as you call it?

AM:  Let's be clear.  Nearly every Christian passes through two stages in his pursuit of humility.  In the first he fears and flees and seeks deliverance from all that can humble him.  He prays for humility, but in his secret heart he prays more to be kept from the very things that would make him humble.

MCF:  So recognizing the first stage in the journey of humility can open the door to the second stage?

AM:  Yes, we can recognize we have further to go.  In the Christian's pursuit of humility, there is a sense of burden and bondage.  Becoming humble has not yet become the spontaneous expression of a life and a nature that is essentially humble.  It has not become his joy and only pleasure.

Can we get there?  Undoubtedly.  What will it be that brings us there?  That which brought Paul there as he dealt with the thorn in his flesh (2 Corinthians 12) - a new revelation of the Lord Jesus - who he is and how he loves.

MCF:  Looking inward, then, does not help us grow in this process as much as looking upward.

AM:  Upward, yes.  The highest lesson a believer has to learn is humility.  Oh, that every Christian who seeks to be holy and mature may remember this well!  There may be intense callings and fervent passion, and heavenly experiences, and yet, if it is not prevented by special dealings of the Lord, there may be an unconscious self-exaltation with it all.  Let us learn the lesson: the highest holiness and greatest maturity is the deepest humility.  It is indeed blessed, the deepest happiness of heaven, to be be so free from self that whatever is said of us or done to us is lost and swalloed up in the thought that Jesus is all.

MCF:  Humiliation in itself is not pleasurable, but it is "swallowed up" in the joy of sharing in Jesus' glory and goodness.  Can this joy in Christ really be enough to swallow up any trouble?

AM:  Let us trust him who took charge of Paul to take charge of us too.  He who cared from him will care for us too.  He watches over us with a jealous, loving care, "lest we exalt ourselves."  Pride kills.  He seeks to show us that evil and deliver us from it.  In such trial and weakness and trouble, we learn his grace is all, his strength is made perfect in our weakness, his presence fills and satisfies our emptiness.  This is the secret of humility that never fails.

MCF:  Any final words about happiness and humility?

AM:  The humble person has learned the secret of abiding happiness .  The weaker he feels, the lower he sinks, the greater his humiliations appear, the more the power and the presence of Christ are his possession.  As he learns to say, "I am nothing," the word of his Lord brings ever deeper joy: "My grace is sufficient for you."

The humility of Jesus is our salvation: Jesus himself is our humility.  Our humility is his care and his work.  Let us choose to be weak, to be low, to be nothing.  Let humility be to us joy and gladness.  Let us gladly glory and take pleasure in weakness in all that can humble us so the power of Christ will rest upon us.  We will find the deepest humility is the secret of the truest happiness, of a joy that nothing can destroy.