Mary Visits Elizabeth

Prayer Practice

Breath Prayer – Take 2-3 minutes today to pray a simple breath prayer. Get somewhere quiet and relaxing. Breathe in deeply, and then breathe out fully. As you breathe in, ask God to fill you with His presence, grace, love, peace, etc. Consider using the list of spiritual fruit in Galatians 5:22-23. As you breathe out, offer to God the things you need Him to take from you – sin, doubt, shame, anxiety, fear, etc. Pray this way for just a few minutes, trusting God to work, and then begin reading today’s Scripture.

DAILY READING

Luke 1:39-56

REFLECTION

In Celebration of the Favor and Blessings of God

 by Dan Kidd

In today’s passage, we encounter Mary’s and Elizabeth’s celebration of the incredible news that God was to be born into the world in order to save world. Upon Gabriel’s announcement to Mary, she hurried to see Elizabeth. Perhaps because she knew that Elizabeth of all people would appreciate this incredible news. If so, Mary was not disappointed. Because it took only Mary’s greeting to set into motion a joyful leap of John, Elizabeth being filled with the Holy Spirit, and Elizabeth’s excited, loud, prophetic blessing over Mary. And did you catch what she called Mary? The blessed mother of the Lord.

It never ceases to delight me how consistently God chooses the under-appreciated—the lowly and disenfranchised—to be his agents of magnificence. Elizabeth, aged beyond childbearing years, stands in the presence of this young, unwed mother-to-be with the incredible news that she will give birth to God. We might anticipate Elizabeth to find this all incredulous, or to respond with envy. There’s not a hint of either. Instead, Elizabeth’s response was to believe Mary wholeheartedly and to count herself favored by God merely to be visited by the mother of the Lord. Elizabeth is an incredible example of someone who appreciates God’s gifts to us. She was thankful for the miraculous gift of her own son, John. She was thankful for the gift of Jesus to Mary. She was thankful simply to be in the midst of someone who was so favored by God. 

Oh, how I want to be so readily positioned to appreciate God’s gifts as Elizabeth! Granted, God’s gifts in this story, two miraculous pregnancies and the announcement that God was to be born a human, are among the more obvious gifts one might encounter. But, the incredible news that was Mary’s applies to us now. The God who has done mighty things, shown great mercy, scattered the proud, toppled the lofty, fed the hungry, lifted the lowly continues to do this today. Jesus saved the world then and is saving the world now, and he is filling us with the Holy Spirit that we might be part of his family. Even now. 

Oh, how I want to be readily positioned to feel the favor of God simply for being in the presence of those he loves and is blessing. How I want to feel the pleasure of the Lord simply by being alongside my sisters and brothers—filled with the Holy Spirit—remembering because of them how generous our God is.

Consider today who in your life makes you thankful to God? In what ways do God’s blessing someone bless you? With the help of God’s Spirit, be attentive today to ways you can express gratitude for the way God gifts us through the people around us.