Are you up to the challenge?  Do you really understand the sacrifice in being a woman or man of purpose?  Do you really understand the commitment it takes to be a woman or man used by God in a life changing way?  Can you handle a journey in submission?  Are you willing to believe God no matter what?

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We face challenges everyday.  Some big and some small.  Some we handle well, others we care not to deal with at all.  However, the Bible tells us that in this life, we will have trials, (Challenges), but we can learn how to handle them with God's help.

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God challenges us for purpose.  He invites us to engage in something greater than ourselves.  I would like to refer to these challenges as God sized challenges.  The good thing about God sized challenges is that they always include God's help.  Also, God sized challenges are intentional; part of His divine purpose for our lives.  The Divine(God) and the human(Us) team up to accomplish God's purpose.  God-sized challenges are simply assignments birthed from the heart of  God  for our good and for His glory.  The question before us today is; when God calls you to an assignment;(God sized challenge), how will you respond?

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I pray that after reading this book you will be able to respond like Mary.  Mary had a God-sized challenge.  She was to carry the Messiah; the baby Jesus in her womb.  She was to be His earthly Mother.  She would become pregnant through the overshadowing of the Holy Spirit.   This seed was incorruptible.

The Challenge in Mary's assignment dealt with factors that were realities to her present situation.  Having a baby is a natural occurrence for women, however the challenging factors in Mary's situation were that one, she was a virgin.  Secondly, she was engaged to Joseph of whom she had not slept with out of wedlock.  Thirdly, Mary was a poor girl from a poor town called Nazareth.

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The Last factor is where I will begin; that of  Mary being poor.  I mention her status of wealth or lack of, not to add any amazement at God using a poor girl.  I mention this so you can see that external factors and realities do not determine if you can or cannot be used by God.  This is good news.  God uses who He wants in whatever way He wants.  Your external factors don't disqualify you from being used by God.  It doesn't matter where you came from, who your parents are or are not, how much education and money you do or don't have, if you were born in a high rise or in the ghetto hustling and surviving as they say on the sitcom "Good Times,"  God is not concerned about all of that.  God chose Mary not concerned about her being poor on the outside, but I believe He chose her because she was rich on the inside.  When God sent Gabriel to Mary, she had on the inside everything she needed to get this task accomplished even though she didn't know what she possessed.  When she said "yes," she took her first step in unlocking the gifts that God had placed in her that would enable her to do what was being told of her.

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Sometimes we won't know the power of ability that we really possess until we get in position for God to use us.

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We get in position by aligning our will with God's will for our lives.

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Perhaps you or someone you know completed a task and said these words; "I didn't know that I could do that." or maybe you have said of someone; "I didn't know they had it in them."

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If you want to unlock all that is within you, get in position.  Say "Yes."

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I believe deep inside all of us there is a desire to face up to the challenge.  What scares most of us is not having the information that tells us how it will be done.  I call that "the process."  It is the road or path that God chooses to get us to divine destiny.  I will admit, the road ahead is unclear.  It would be easy to say yes to God if we had all the answers ahead of time, but most of the time we don't have those answers.  It requires Faith.  We must trust in God who has all the answers.

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God begins by giving us a Promise, and when we say "yes", the Process begins but the end result is always a Blessing.

 

At the end of the day, in. the midst of Mary's challenge and uncertainty, Mary said yes to God's will.  She was willing to take the journey.

Lets finish reading so we can unlock the "how" of Mary's courage and discover her Promise, her Process and her Blessing.