You Are Worthy (Part 1)

“Mary was greatly troubled at his words” (Luke 1:26-38)

You are worthy, yes there I’ve said it! You may not believe it but it is true. Sometimes our past experiences can make us think it’s not true. Our past can understandably make us lose trust in people, which can sadly make us lose trust in God. Part 1 will take you on a journey with two women called Mary and Elizabeth and how we can see them as inspiration in letting God use us to fulfil His purpose. In my second blog post, I’ll also be giving practical steps in how we can all do this.

Luke, who wrote the words quoted above, was a historian and you can tell this by looking at how he started this section. If we look at the first line of verse 26, within chapter 1 in the Book of Luke, Luke starts his introduction of Jesus’ mother, Mary, to the world by talking about a woman called Elizabeth! The line is “In the sixth month of Elizabeth’s pregnancy” The following verse says “to a virgin pledged to be married to a man named Joseph, a descendant of David”. 

This is all described in the first 34 words before we even learn Mary’s name. Luke was establishing the importance of Mary’s bloodline and ancestry. This shows us that God’s choice for choosing Mary to give birth to Jesus was not a coincidence. 

If we go back to Elizabeth. Elizabeth was Mary’s cousin and Elizabeth was a descendant of Aaron. If we go all the way back to the Book of Exodus, in particular Exodus chapter 4, verse 14 we see that Aaron was Moses’ brother and was a priest. 

Mary’s husband-to-be, Joseph, was a descendant of David. Even if you are not familiar with every book in the Old and New Testament, I’m sure you have heard of David. If you are not familiar with the Bible at all, if I say Goliath, the horrible giant we all learned about as a child, then the other name you think of is… yes David. Joseph was related to that David. David became a King of Israel around 1000 years before Jesus was born and he united all the tribes of Israel under one king. Most of the Psalms are attributed to David. 

Most importantly it was prophesied and when I say prophesied, I mean that God revealed to particular prophets events that would happen hundreds of years later. So it was prophesied by prophets Isaiah and Jeremiah that the Messiah, Jesus Christ, would be a descendant of David. Isaiah, chapter 11 verse 1, says “There shall come forth a Rod from the stem of Jesse, And a Branch shall grow out of his roots”. For context Jesse was David’s dad, so Isaiah is revealing that the messiah will come from Jesse’s family, which is David’s family. 

What is interesting about the encounter that Mary had with the angel, is that the angel is named. As verse 26 says, she was visited by the Archangel Gabriel. Most of the time in the Bible when an angel visited someone they were not named, however this is not the case here. Gabriel is only one of two angels named in the Bible- the other one is Michael. The Archangel Gabriel’s importance is signified as he stood in the presence of God, which is explained in Luke chapter 1, verse 19. So God choosing Gabriel to give the message to Mary shows the importance of the message.

Blind faith

What stands out with Mary is that even though she was worried, she accepted the angel Gabriel’s message and trusted God straight away. Even though she asked the obvious question of how this would happen because she was an unmarried virgin. She accepted the message that she would conceive a child by the Holy Spirit, by saying “I am the Lord’s servant,” […] “May your word to me be fulfilled”. Now there are not many women who, if they were in Mary’s position, would have accepted this assignment as quickly as Mary did or accepted it at all.  

If Mary had not been led by blind faith, she could’ve talked herself out of God’s assignment for her. She could’ve tried to reject it by worrying about the stigma of being an unmarried pregnant woman. She could have been led by the worry of Joseph deciding not to marry her, which unknown to Mary at the time was in fact Joseph’s initial plan, to divorce her quietly as explain in Matthew chapter 1, verses 18-25. However, instead she put her trust in God and stepped into the unknown of being the woman to give birth to the Son of God. 

In order for us to let God use us, we have to be like Mary and have unwavering trust and obedience in God. There may be some of you that think you are not important enough for God to use you to achieve an assignment for Him and if you think that then you are very mistaken. God has had a plan for every one of us sitting here today from before we were formed in our mother’s wombs. 

Mary was a girl from a poor background so based on probabilities she was not expected to achieve much in her life. However God’s plan for her was very different. 

So if God can use a poor virgin girl living in the undesirable village of Nazareth to give birth and raise God the Son, then there is no reason why he can’t use a single parent working two jobs to make sure the bills are paid, to be a positive nurturing role model to their children’s friends who may be living with parents who aren’t good role models; or use someone with a disability to bring light to others when they are facing darkness, or use someone with no qualifications to start that business that will make a difference to society- according to God’s Will; or use a retired person with their vast life experience and skill set to make a different in their local community. We all have assignments waiting to be completed that will bring us closer to God’s ultimate purpose for us, if only we trusted God no matter how much it takes us out of our comfort zone. 

1 Corinthians chapter 2, verses 9-11 says:

“However, as it is written: “What no eye has seen, what no ear has heard, and what no human mind has conceived”— the things God has prepared for those who love him— these are the things God has revealed to us by his Spirit. The Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God. For who knows a person’s thoughts except their own spirit within them? In the same way no one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God”.

This shows that we can’t predict what God will use us for, so don’t try and second guess and end up refusing Him!

How?

So now there will be some of you who may be thinking how can I truly trust God when I’ve been abused, abandoned or let down all my life. You may be thinking I really want God to use me but my life has been so hard, with suffering and struggle that I don’t trust anyone and that hardness sadly has extended to God. Well this is where we look to Elizabeth for inspiration. In chapter 1, verse 36 of the Book of Luke, the angel Gabriel says: 

“Even Elizabeth your relative is going to have a child in her old age, and she who was said to be unable to conceive is in her sixth month”.

Trauma wounds

Mary’s cousin, Elizabeth, went through a traumatic event that lasted throughout most of her marriage, not being able to have a child. Imagine that, especially in the time they were living in, as the plan for a woman was that you got married and had children, but this didn’t happen for Elizabeth. 

She probably went through her adulthood with the usual unwarranted questions married childless women go through when they can’t have children. Fast forward thousands of years later and women still get those questions and comments. I know I do because I have one child and not the magic number of two- an older boy and a younger girl to be precise. Some people can make assumptions, suddenly becoming medical experts giving unsolicited advice when in reality they have an office job in accounts. 

However, on the flip side, women who have four or more children then get judgy comments about having too many children, so I’ve concluded that we can’t really win! 

This must have been heartbreaking for Elizabeth to have to accept this reality into her old age. Using modern psychology she most likely would’ve developed what is now called a long standing trauma wound.

The Greek translation of trauma means wound. There are different types of wounds. There are fresh wounds which when touched are painful and you flinch. There are old wounds, with scar tissue which are inflexible and numb to pain.

Physician Dr Garbor Mate says our trauma isn’t the traumatic event, our trauma is what happens to us on the inside- the wound that trauma leaves in us. External traumatic events we have been through can leave us with trauma or wounds that are just too painful, so we don’t let anyone get too close; or they are so old we become inflexible and numb. These inner wounds/traumas cause us to create separation from our feelings, emotions and in some cases separation from God. 

Elizabeth may have become numb to the feelings of longing for a child in order to protect herself. However, the key thing is she didn’t let her trauma separate her from God and prevent her from fulfilling God’s purpose of having her child, John the Baptist, at an old age. Like Elizabeth, we cannot let our traumas, whatever they are, make us lose trust in God and ultimately separating us from God and stopping Him using us for His greatness.

God has a purpose for every single one of us and any traumatic events you have been through shouldn’t be a reason to rule yourselves out of trusting God and letting Him use you.