Living a Legacy
Tom Skaff, Steve Aikman and I meet every other week for breakfast. But we don't get together just to share a meal and the latest Dilbert jokes. We meet to hold each other accountable to live godly lives. A few months ago we began talking about our funerals. We challenged each other to think about what we wanted the significant people in our lives to say about us after we die. That exercise may sound pretty morbid, but I wonder if you have ever thought of what your family will remember most about you. What legacy are you leaving behind in the lives of the people you work with or the people you worship with? The longer the three of us thought about it, the more we were motivated to cultivate Christlike qualities in our lives right now.
As we catch our final glimpse of Mary in the New Testament, we begin to sense the impact of her life and example on our lives as Christians. Mary's spiritual legacy challenges me in
Page 118
at least three areas of my walk with Christ — areas that I struggle with often.
First, Mary is an enduring model of willing obedience to God. Unfortunately, we've allowed Mary's gender to cloud the power of her example. Mary too often is pictured as the submissive woman or wife when in fact she submits to God as his servant. Mary did not know what her willingness to obey God's invitation to be the mother of the Messiah would bring into her life. She only knew that the Lord was the most important person. She had a heart that was willing to submit to God even before she was asked.
Most of us think it would be easy to obey God if we had a visit from an angel like Mary did or if we heard God's audible voice. What we haven't grasped is that a willing heart is developed and nurtured as we obey what we already know. Our problem is not in getting more direction from God but in obeying what we already understand.
My frustration is that I want God to tell me where I should be when God is far more concerned that I become what he wants me to be. I want a course laid out in my life with all the blanks filled in. But God is far more focused on the development of my character than on the advancement of my career.
I don't know of any verse in the Bible that will tell you what classes you should take in college next semester. There's no passage that will tell you what job offer to accept or who specifically you should marry. Nothing is said directly in Scripture about where I should be as a believer, but what God wants me to be is made abundantly clear.
Would you like to know God's will for you today? I obviously don't know you, but I can tell you that part of his will for you is that in everything you give thanks. I know that is God's will because God's Word says so in 1 Thessalonians 5:18. God's will is also that you grow progressively more like Christ and pro-
Page 119
gressively less like the sinful world around you (1 Thessalonians 4:3). God's will according to Ephesians 5:17-18 is that you become filled or controlled by the Holy Spirit. God's will for you at work tomorrow is that you carry out your responsibilities honestly and diligently, as if Jesus were the one you were trying to please (Ephesians 6:5-6).
God's direction in our lives comes to us as we develop godly character, and we develop godly character by obeying what God has already said to us in his Word. I have found that as I become what God wants me to be, he has had very little difficulty breaking in on my life and putting me where he wants me to be. Mary did not become obedient when Gabriel stood in her presence. Mary, even at a young age, had cultivated a heart of obedience to God. When the moment of decision came, Mary had already disciplined herself to willingly submit to the One who reigned in her life as Lord.
A Matter of Obedience
Karen Karper lives a solitary life of poverty in the hills of West Virginia. She has embraced a life of dependence on God voluntarily. The quiet of her solitude was shattered one day by a call from a friend in desperate need of one hundred dollars. As she listened to the frantic story, Karen realized that one hundred dollars was exactly half the amount in her checking account.
"How soon do you need the money?" she asked. Then she heard another voice, quiet but direct: "Give it to him." With a step of faith, she promised to send the money. She wrote out the check and climbed the hill to her mailbox beside the road. The mail from the day before was there, and she glanced through it without much interest. Back at the house, she sat on the porch to open the letters. A check fell out of one of the envelopes — a check for one hundred dollars. She thanked God
Page 120
immediately. "Your timing, Lord, is utterly fantastic." As she thought about this unexpected provision, Karen concluded, "Once again I had experienced how my Faithful God provided for my every need, even forestalling a single day of worry."1 The careful and difficult cultivation of an obedient life blossomed into the fragrant flower of a spirit willing to do whatever God desired.
Karen Karper's obedience, like Mary's, was not forced or extracted under pressure. We have a desire to serve those we genuinely love. You may find yourself responsible to care for an aging parent or a sick friend. As difficult as those situations can be at times, sacrificial love has to lie at the heart of that care. Otherwise we sink quickly into resentful complaint. In our marriages we learn to anticipate the other person's needs and desires. Wherever our mate wants to eat out or whatever our mate wants to watch on television is fine with us. The same willingness ought to mark our walk with the Lord. A tender spirit toward God doesn't have to be pushed or threatened into obedience. A suggestion, the slightest nudge from the Spirit, is enough to send us joyfully on our way to do whatever will please the One we love most. I wish my own life approached Mary's level of humble, joyful, extravagant obedience.
Meditating on God's Goodness
Another root of Mary's legacy that I want to take hold in the soil of my life is her willingness to quietly reflect on God's character and on God's activity for good in the circumstances in which she found herself. Quiet thought and biblical meditation are almost lost disciplines in our hectic world. We want fast food, instant solutions to our problems and effortless spiritual maturity. Most of the books and seminars on prayer focus on what we do in prayer and what we say. Very few resources discuss the place of silence in prayer or the importance of
Page 121
listening in prayer for God's insight and instruction. Our time in God's Word is just one more demand on our overcrowded "to do" list. When we've finished, we rush on through our day and barely give a moment of thought to what we've read or how it might affect our priorities or responsibilities.
Mary had learned the value of quiet reflection. In her song of praise to God, she reflects out loud on the marvelous character and wonderful works of God. Her song emerges from her own meditation on who God is and how he is working in her life and in the life of the believing community around her. When Jesus is born, Mary treasures and stores away the events surrounding the birth. Later, in her own thoughts, she examines those events one after another. When Jesus as a young boy stays behind in Jerusalem, frightening his parents, Mary questions him but then reflects on the significance of all that had happened. In the insightful words of one student of Mary's legacy: "Mary does not wait passively for someone else to explain things to her; she takes an active part by thinking, reflecting, considering matters."2
Don't trivialize Mary's quiet pondering, as if she is doing nothing more than gluing pictures in a family scrapbook. Mary is demonstrating the value of the difficult spiritual work of reflection, quiet meditation focused on God's character and on his purposes in our lives.
Fortunately there are some resources designed to help us sharpen this particular aspect of our spiritual walk. A search of your local Christian bookstore will lead you to some excellent resources written to provide the structure for regular, systematic reading and personal Bible study. Look also for material that provides suggestions for personal reflection and prayer.3 Reading the meditative writings of Christian sisters and brothers of the past makes us pause and think carefully about the call of Christ in our lives. You can't skim through Augustine or
Page 122
Teresa of Avila. Their profound words and quiet contemplation on the ways of God slow our minds and steady our hearts so we can ponder the wonders of God's love and grace.
The Line of the Unknown
The aspect of Mary's spiritual example that has made the deepest impression on me is her vulnerability to all that God wanted to do in her life. The word vulnerability does not mean that Mary was a weak, helpless victim. It is a courageous word. Most of us don't step forward to embrace change or struggle. We aren't risk-takers, especially in our walk with the Lord. But Mary was willing to step across the line of the unknown. She wasn't foolishly rushing in where angels fear to tread. She was simply willing to open herself fully to everything that came from God's hand. She was willing to walk with the Lord through joy and through pain because she had learned to trust the Shepherd of her life. She had learned that the place of safety was near to God even in the most desperate circumstances.
Mary was willing to respond positively to God's call to bear the Messiah even if it meant losing everyone she held dear, including Joseph. She was willing to stand at the cross and watch up close as her son died. She accepted the incredible pain of the sword in her heart because she knew God had led her to the foot of that cross.
We are very willing to accept what we perceive as good and pleasant from God, but we aren't very willing to embrace the plan of God if it leads to suffering or loss. We love to stand in a gathering of Christians and tell about the remarkable evidences of God's power in our lives. We don't hear many testimonies, however, about the fellowship of Christ's suffering. Bearing in our bodies the dying of Jesus just doesn't hold much appeal in the church of the prosperous and in the land of plenty.
Page 123
Mary stepped up to embrace whatever glory and whatever pain the will of God brought to her. She endured the difficulties not just for the eternal glory that stretched ahead of her as a redeemed child of God. She was vulnerable to both tragedy and celebration simply for the joy of serving her God.
Following in Mary's Steps
Many serious Catholics will admit that some Catholics have elevated Mary almost to the level of deity. That excessive devotion needs to be corrected. Many serious evangelicals will admit that most evangelicals have ignored Mary as a biblical model of servanthood and godly obedience. That shameful neglect needs to be corrected too. Every Christian will confess that worship and glory and adoration belong to God alone. Some day we will all stand redeemed before the Father, and we will find ourselves conformed perfectly not to the image of Mary but to the image of Mary's son, Jesus Christ. Until that day, we are to run the race of this life with endurance and faith. Mary is one of the great company of witnesses urging us on and modeling the kind of life we are to live. We can certainly find encouragement in the race from Mary's life, but our eyes are fixed on Jesus, our Redeemer, the One who washed us from our sins and who loves us with an eternal love.
This December when you put out the nativity set for Christmas, give thanks to God for Mary's courageous example. Strive to display the same willing obedience in your life that Mary models. But then give praise and worship to Mary's son, Jesus Christ, who displayed the most sacrificial obedience of all when he stepped from heaven's glory to become our Savior.
"Whatever he says, do it!"
