(The Angel replied to her) “Nothing is impossible with God.” Mary responded, “I am the Lord’s servant. May everything you have said about me come true.” And then the angel left her.
Luke 1:37-38 NLT
This month we find ourselves in the season of Advent. Growing up in the Baptist tradition, I don’t remember focusing on liturgical seasons, so it wasn’t until I was attending a Presbyterian Church in recent years that I learned about it. This doesn’t mean less liturgically focused churches don’t celebrate the preparation of the coming of the Messiah, we just never used the word “Advent” to describe it in my memory.
For others who don’t follow the liturgical church seasons, and are fuzzy on what exactly Advent is, it is simply the season Christians consider the state of expectant waiting and preparation to celebrate the birth of Christ. There was about 400 years of waiting from what is considered the last Old Testament-era prophet until Jesus was born. That was a long advent season!
This morning, as I sat quietly during an otherwise busy season, I was hungry to find a moment where the Holy Spirit would bring a whisper of a word to me instead of my own bustling of the mind. I have a lot of things buzzing around my schedule, mind, and heart this month, and I desperately wanted to find even a brief moment to hear the still small voice, with a word that would quiet all the rest and draw me into the secret place. I wanted a taste of that peace in the middle of the whir that I could take with me through the day.
What impressed on me was hopes and dreams. The dreams we have for the future. The hope we have in what is to come. My entire spirit was being drawn into the image of dreams being birthed in our lives. I asked God to plant HIS dreams in me and then walk me into the fulfillment of them.
I believe God does plant his dreams in our hearts. the Bible tells us that He gives us the desire of our hearts.
Delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart.
Psalm 37:4
I don’t think that means only that God grants us the fulfillment of what we desire, I believe it also means he puts the unique desires there to begin with, to create a hunger and hope in us for the things he has planned for us. I am pretty sure those hopes and dreams get distorted to the degree we don’t have a clean heart and seek God above all else. If we have gunk on our lens from loving and desiring something more than God I think our dreams can get distorted to a large or small extent, but I think God is the dream giver.
So today, as I sat in conversation with the Holy Spirit, I was asking God to set his dreams on my heart and then fulfill them when I had the image of Mary. In the scene from Luke 1, an angel came to Mary and asked her if she would carry God’s dream to redeem humanity. She asked how something so seemingly impossible could happen and the angel assured her nothing is impossible with God if you are willing.
Ok, she said, I am the Lord’s servant, may everything you have said about me come true.
I realized this connects beautifully and personally to Advent! We spend a lot of time considering what advent means to us in the light of a savior being born. We quiet ourselves to feel the impact of having peace between us and God because He sent his son to be the sacrifice we could never give on our own. These are important things to spend time chewing on in our spirits as we prepare for Christmas.
Now, I considered a new layer of Advent! Not only celebrating preparing ourselves figuratively for the celebration of the birth of Christ, but a preparation and time of clearing out my own heart to offer a birth place for not only the savior who does live in us, but with him comes the dreams that God has in mind for me to give birth to. I pondered in Mary’s story, that the restoration of humankind to intimate relationship with God, was a dream God had, that he found a willing human to partner with and give literal birth to. What my own heart cried out this morning in the middle of advent was: me too!
Father, I am willing to walk out the impossible path, I accept the planting of your dreams inside me, and I will give birth of God’s dream that you have uniquely for me to bring to the earth.
In January 2023, I read ‘Birthing The Miraculous’ by Heidi Baker. I was inspired by her willingness to partner with the birth of God’s dreams in Mozambique, and her book brought forward the image of birthing of dreams vividly to my life. Impossible dreams are not new for me! My hearts cry is to have these hopes and dreams refined in me because I want them to be as closely aligned to God’s vision as possible in my own heart. Then I want the courage, grace, and resources to be able to walk them out, regardless of the challenges, and I am willing to go through the preparation and the often messy, difficult birthing process (they call this labor!) to being them here into our chaotic planet. I want to see more of God’s kingdom expanding around me in my life!
Now as the year comes to a close I find myself asking: May it be lord, according to your word in me.
For you my friend, at the end of a year and the beginning of a new on just around the corner, I pray Psalm 20:4 May the Lord grant you your heart’s desire and fulfill all your plans!
The Jael Finishing School for Ladies 