She, Herself & God
Mary’s Submission to 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 1:38)
As a daughter, I can confidently say that I have submitted to my parents’ authority in every season of my life. When they told me as a child not to go outside and play with other children my age, I obeyed them and just invited one playmate at a time to come over to our house instead. When they told me as a student to study very well, I obeyed them and even became a consistent honor student throughout my school career. When they told me as a teenager not to attend parties with my peers, I obeyed them and went home straight from school to help with the household chores and take care of my younger siblings. And when they told me as a young adult not to entertain suitors until my younger siblings had finished college, I obeyed them and focused instead on my responsibilities as a Filipino firstborn.
But while it is admirable to have that kind of submission to my parents, I have realized that being submissive is actually a trait of a servant, which I should first have as a child to my true Parent: the Heavenly Father. Just like Mary, who was visited by the angel of God to tell her the good news that she would be the mother of Jesus Christ, I should submit to the Lord as well because He is my true Master; and I am both His servant and His child. This means that whatever God tells me to do or not to do in my life, I should gladly obey and do the things that will be aligned with His plans for me instead. More importantly, I should follow His greatest commandment: to love Him with all of my being, which is also known as the total surrender kind of love. Thus, it goes without saying that pleasing Him (and not myself nor anyone else) should be my ultimate goal in this life.
How about you? What are your thoughts on submission? Have you ever submitted to anyone’s authority other than God’s? What were the things you did or did not do in the name of obedience? And what did you get in the end? Would you agree that your act of submitting was for your own good or the other way around? Or perhaps, you are already a submissive daughter to our Heavenly Father just like Mary. Can you recall the things that the Lord had asked you to do for Him? How did you find out and understand His message for you? And how did you react when you received that call from God? Were you like Mary who believed right away? Or did you doubt and reject the Lord’s call? What happened next?
As a woman of God though, each of us should be as submissive as Mary, who accepted wholeheartedly the good news of the angel of the Lord and even looked forward to its fulfillment. Each of us should be obedient to God even if things do not make sense at all just like Mary becoming pregnant even if she was still a virgin. Each of us should respond to the call of the Holy Spirit even if it means forgetting about our own plans. Each of us should trust our Heavenly Father and submit to His parental authority because only He knows what is truly best for us. And just like Mary, each of us should always declare with full confidence that we belong to the Lord because we are both His servants and His children.
Almighty God, we recognize that You are the Supreme Being worthy of our Mary-like submission and total surrender. We want Your divine instruction, guidance, and direction because we cannot do life on our own. We are confident that whenever You tell us to do or not to do certain things, it is for our own good and not the other way around. And how we long to be like Mary who submitted to Your parental authority no matter what the circumstance was. May we also offer to You the same kind of submission, obedience, and anticipation so that we will never grieve Your Spirit due to our sinfulness. On that note, we invite the Holy Ghost to live fully within us so that we can please You in every season of our lives. Please keep on correcting our foolish minds, cleansing our deceitful hearts, and changing our sinful lives for Your glory. All these we ask as Your servants in the Name of our Master Jesus Christ. Amen.
