the silence after

I like to watch movies. As aforementioned elsewhere on this blog, Netflix has been a huge time-waste of mine that I thoroughly enjoy.

I and a good friend of mine routinely would watch movies and critique (and criticize) the plot development of many of the films we watched. Sometimes, there are inexplicable gaps in plot sequencing. Other times, filmmakers include far too much minutia, as if his/her audience is absolutely incapable of arriving at certain conclusions on their own.

Every so often, though, in a movie (or TV show, book, or magazine article), there are scenes or lines that completely capture my attention and send me into a mental rabbit chase.

Since I was a child, I've had a very vivid imagination - so these mental digressions are not all that rare. I'll envision in my head and play out what might be taking place between two minor characters or "finish" a scene in my head that isn't on the screen.

Recently, during a Christmas season sermon out of Luke 1, I had a similar experience. The pastor was delivering riveting sermon about Mary's early encounter with the angel.

After a good deal of justifiable vexation at the task before her and after she suggested to the angel that perhaps she wasn't the one that was cut out for all of this, she finally says these beautiful words (my paraphrase):

"Behold, the Lord's servant, may it come to pass as you have said."*

She humbly accepted what she had been chosen to do and was now being called to carry out. Her response is one of submission to God's will, despite her being perplexed - and no doubt apprehensive.

But these details and the rest of the sermon were lost on me because of the final phrase of Luke 1:38:

And then the angel departed from her.

I spent the rest of the day thinking about those words.

I wonder what myriad thoughts were racing through Mary's mind in those moments.

Did that just happen?

Was that a dream?

Wait, you want me to do...what?

Have you ever had an experience like that? No, not where an angel of the Lord appears to you and announces to you that you, as a virgin, are going to carry the flesh and blood Son of God.

But have you ever heard the voice of the Lord so doubtlessly and clearly?

Had one of those moments where everything fell into place, and even if it didn't exactly make a ton of sense - or any sense - you were going to submit to the Lord and be obedient to that which He had called you?

And then, in the silence after, wondered...

Did I make that up?

Could this be real?

Why me?

I can't do that.

There's no telling what all was screaming through Mary's mind in those moments after her encounter with Gabriel.

I know for me, it's usually the same lot of questions. The same lot of poorly-constructed justifications to disregard what I had only moments, seconds before had heard so crisply and doubtlessly.

I wish I could tell you that I bucked up in all those situations, shook off the doubt, and painted a picture of perfect trust and obedience.

I wonder if Jesus had his moments of the same kind of mental war, like when He was in Gethsemane.

I wonder if the disciples ever looked at Jesus, like when he told him to feed the multitudes and think, How's that, now?

I wonder if Paul, while swimming away from the shipwreck or getting beaten again in some prison by some magistrate trying to shut him up and thought, That really was you on that road to Damascus, right Lord?

Moses argued with God about his qualification.

Jeremiah, too.

We aren't alone when we hear God and, moments later, try to pretend we didn't.

God calls us to hard tasks.

Trust Him.

Then, like Nike said all those years: Just do it.

Trusting Him fully, even when what He's asking seems absurd, is the only way to respond correctly.

Our human reasoning, feeble and selfish as it is, will lead us down a thousand different roads that wind up in one place: disobedience.

You want to see God work? Obey in the calling He has on your life, whatever that is - whether it be a specific task or a lifelong career, a single conversation or a lifetime of change.

The author of Hebrews said it this way, "And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him."

A million different voices creep into the silence after a genuine encounter with God, and they all come from one place.

"Resist the devil, therefore, and he will flee from you."


Father, give us the guts to trust You and trust Your word that this is true. Give us the guts to, in real faith in You (not manufactured 'faith' that we stamp on selfish decisions), be bold and courageous when we are afraid and when we doubt. Heal the place inside of me that turns everywhere else but to You in those moments. Do great things in me, because I know that I am unworthy of the slightest bit of Your attention, but because of your exceeding love, I am called a friend of You and a son and that I am more than a conqueror. Please give me the guts to hang onto those words and to trust in Your unfathomably deep power. Amen.