Greetings, you who are highly favored!
—Luke 1:28
Angel Gabriel showed up at Mary’s door and said, “Greetings, you who are highly favored!”
He told the mystified teenager that she would give birth to a son and that he would be great and would be called the son of the Most High.
Highly favored indeed. But the price she paid for the honor was agonizing. She was engaged to be married: had mapped her life in domestic frocks; a calm life in a quiet Nazareth neighborhood.
You know the rest of her story—she gave birth to her baby in a barn . . . and three decades later watched him die the death of a criminal.
When Mary said yes to God’s plan, it meant saying no to her own.
We, too, have been highly favored; saved by grace. Saying yes to his plan may mean saying no to our own.
A life without purpose
is a life without substance.