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(Note:
The following message originally aired on Autism One
Radio. To hear the broadcast at any time, please go
to: http://autismone.org/radio/?archive=1574&bg=&FromA1
and click on the arrow above “Listen to Jack and
Rebecca Sytsema.”)
THE
CHRISTMAS MIRACLE, PART THREE:
THE THINGS ANGELS SAY
by Jack Hayford
WE
HADN’T PLANNED on this baby. But there’s
an inescapable law of married love that, if you are
open to its expression, life has a way of multiplying.
And love, too. Love was shortly to be written all over
the three little faces in front of us.
Anna and I had called the kids into the living room
after the supper dishes were washed. They hadn’t
expected much more than a brief family meeting of sorts—a
review of something we would be doing that weekend,
or an item of relatively small significance. But there
was more in store for us all that any of them imagined.
“Kids,” I began, “Mom and I want to
take a few minutes and talk about something that is
going to happen because we know you’ll all want
to know before we tell anyone else.”
They didn’t have the slightest anticipation of
the unusual. The youngest was seven years old, and along
with his nine-year-old brother and eleven-year-old sister,
they had concluded what Anna and I previously believed:
We had finished our family. But that had all changed
now.
We were all seated on the floor, in front of the old
heater that was made a little more elegant by having
had a mantle built around it. It was early autumn, school
had resumed and homework was waiting when I finished
talking to them so I got right to the point. Reaching
over to take Anna’s hand, I smiled and said to
the trio, “Mama’s going to have a baby.”
The room became electric. Big sister Becki’s face
broke into a slow-grow smile that seemed to stretch
from wall to wall. Jack looked stunned, and his small
hand opened as he brought it upward and slapped his
forehead as though to say, “I can’t believe
it!” Mark’s eyes, then his voice, spoke
his puzzlement: “I thought Mom was too old to
have any more babies.”
And for our part, though still in our early thirties
we had been as surprised a few weeks before as our kids
were now.
That pleasant memory is a generation behind us today
because that baby—our daughter Christa—is
now married and has a brand-new baby of her own, born
last Thanksgiving Day. Bu the joy of that memory goes
well beyond the initial surprise Anna and I experienced,
or that realized by our children.
Christa’s birth—which was a welcome addition,
but hardly a convenience to our carefully laid plans—became
a practical lesson in the wisdom of God’s planning
as opposed to ours: “For as the heavens are higher
than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways,
and My thoughts than your thoughts” (Isa. 55:9).
Little did we know how that baby was given to signal
an entirely new era in our lives. For she had hardly
been born when the Holy Spirit began to stir us toward
new pathways. They opened through a Holy Spirit-directed
turn that resulted in our accepting an obscure little
pastorate in the San Fernando Valley, which eventually
became The Church On The Way. Our joyous acceptance
of an unexpected pregnancy became the launching point
of a continual flow of wonders.
“Surprise
Babies”
Looking
back on it, I can’t escape the feeling that the
two events were linked in God’s plan for us. It’s
as though He was testing our willingness to allow Him
to upset our plans and set His in motion at a new dimension
of miracle wonder.
How likely is it that, even as you read this, the Father
has a “surprise baby” for you—I mean,
a new turn with wonders waiting ahead?
I know this: Whatever His promises for your future may
be, two things are certain about it.
First, they are good: “For I know the thoughts
that I think toward you, says the Lord, thoughts of
peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope”
(Jer. 29:11).
Second, His promises work only in, and through, those
who are willing to become “pregnant.” (In
fact, I think it’s time to confess to you that
my heart’s purpose in writing this is in the hope
that the largest possible number of people will do just
that—“get pregnant,” I mean.)
Of course, this order of pregnancy is subject to any
number of definitions in its outworking. But at the
point of its inworking, it begins with our personal
heart-readiness to be open to God’s call.
Answering that call leads the way to His loving purpose,
to His living promise and to His transforming power.
But I have found that most of us open only to the degree
that we trust Him, and answer only to the degree that
we believe He is committed to bless our lives, not mess
them up.
God’s
Call to You
Gabriel’s
visit to Mary issued the heavenly Father’s invitation.
And the things the angel said were laden with hope for
Mary’s world and for glory to fill the future.
Listen to these phrases because the things angels say
give us a clue to God’s way of thinking when He
calls us to His purposed plan for our lives.
• He
will be great (Luke 1:32).
• The Lord God will give Him the throne (Luke
1:32).
• Of His kingdom there will be no end (Luke 1:33)
I
can’t urge you strongly enough to let these words
settle into your own soul because, like the Mary miracle,
they also are a genre—a “kind” of
thing God does. Although they were spoken of Jesus,
whom Mary would bear, the truer-than-ever truth today
is that this same Jesus has come to dwell in us. And
the purpose of His entry is not only to abide with us,
but also to extend His kingdom through us. So many dear
believers only think of this “extending”
in terms of religious duties, accepting Christian disciplines
and trying harder to “be good.” Thus, attempting
to master our limitations and trying to cultivate self-discipline
becomes a wearying effort at spiritual achievement.
But our Father’s plan is to birth Christ’s
life in us, not demand His life from us.
I have an angelic “word” for you about this,
the same one spoken by the shepherds: “Today a
Savior is born to you.” There’s a new life
resource available for every new day, and a new challenge,
too. God wants to reveal His “surprise”
workings at new dimensions of joy we couldn’t
have thought possible. Whether you’re seeking
to respond to His call to a new realm of service, or
trying to overcome an old problem that has caused stress
for you, I invite you to “listen to the angels.”
This Mary-miracle approach to growth and victory isn’t
painless or problem-free—having babies never is.
But it is alive and aglow, filled with joy, rather than
with juggling the metallic pieces of a “Do-It-Yourself-Christian
Kit.” God’s surprise ways are superior to
our best efforts at anything—even trying to live
for Him. He is in the life-begetting, birthing business
because it produces sons and daughters, not robots.
The good news of the gospel doesn’t end with our
new birth. It continues by announcing the possibilities
of periodic, additional surprise babies—birthing
of blessing making possible new growth, and always through
the power of new grace. Such a life-flow to us, in us
and through us changes things around us as we find:
• Release
from life’s most besetting sin, as habits are
broken and forgiveness drives out guilt;
• Brightness shining in life’s darkest corners,
as love beams in and drives out fear;
• Provision unfolds for life’s deepest need,
as God’s abundance drives out want;
• Strength flows to focus on life’s weakest
point, as divine enablement drives out failure;
• Health springs forth at life’s sorest
place, as the Healer Himself begins to drive out pain.
The
Mary miracle is the means by which these possibilities
are conceived. But a healthy impregnation requires,
first, that we listen to the angels, that we tune in
to the real message that comes from God’s throne.
It hasn’t changed. If anything is consistent about
the revelation of God’s reaching toward us, it’s
the reality of the ceaseless flow of love He extends
to us all.
Angel messages more frequently come through the Holy
Spirit’s ministry today, either by prophetic gift,
vital preaching, personal promptings or devotional reading
of the Scriptures. But they say the same wonderful things
as they always have. Why? Because God is the same Lover,
Comforter, Friend and Creator of His “good things”
for His children as He has always been.
God wants His message of encouragement to get through
to us because otherwise our minds become deafened by
the roar of circumstance, and our hearts close up to
hope. But God’s Word—brought by the messages
spoken to us in the quiet of our hearts, the silence
of our room or by any of the dozens of means He may
employ to got His Word to us—that Word is calling
you and me to hear, and to be open to love’s promise
of hope, whatever our situation.
What are you facing, or walking through, that needs
heaven’s promise spoken—then born into the
middle of it? The words the angels spoke in ancient
days were written to speak to us. They tell us that
God wants to:
1. Fulfill
our longings;
2. Secure our future;
3. Give confident direction;
4. Stimulate a godly self-image;
5. Point to a brighter tomorrow;
6. Bring us through life’s fire;
7. Free us from life’s prisons;
8. Take us safely through life’s storms;
9. Bring us to ultimate victory.
That’s
the kind of hope and promise God wants people to hear
and receive. Angels know that, too. Because Mary listened
to the angel, she became pregnant with the Greatest
Promise in the world Who answered all humankind’s
need and still satisfies every person’s thirst
for forgiveness, meaning and destiny. The Mary miracle,
then, points a pathway for recurrent promise to come
into actual experience: You begin by listening, receiving
the message of hope, and believing the promise.
“Surprise babies” of the Father’s
loving purpose are waiting to be born. The Mary miracle
starts with word of their availability for birth. May
the Lord cause this next season of your life to be filled
with all the promise and hope of a “surprise baby”
that will help usher in His destined plan for you and
your family.
* * * * *
For Part One of this article, click
here.
For
Part Two of this article, click
here.
For
Part Four of this article, click
here.
(This article is one in a four-part series we have posted
on Children of Destiny's website. This material has
been excerpted from The Christmas Miracle by
Jack Hayford, © Copyright 1999, Regal Books, Ventura,
CA 93003. Used by Permission.)
___________________________________
For
a list of radio programs and companion article archives,
click here.
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