Luke 2:19 “But Mary treasured up all these things, and pondered them in her heart.”
Think about how much the life of Mary, the mother of Jesus, changed in 9 short months. One day she is doing her daily routine in Nazareth, thinking about becoming a wife to a great guy named Joseph. Next thing you know there is the angel Gabriel appearing to her and announcing she is going to have a baby boy, but it will not be any ordinary child. Matter of fact, she is told, “And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bring forth a Son, and shall call His name Jesus. 32 “He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Highest; and the Lord God will give Him the throne of His father David. 33 “And He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of His kingdom there will be no end.” (Luke 1:31-33)
Overwhelmed with this news, she now asked how this was going to happen since “she did not know a man?” She then hears “the angel Gabriel answer and says to her, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Highest will overshadow you; therefore, also, that Holy One who is to be born will be called the Son of God.” This has become no ordinary day!
Mary then makes the life-changing decision to say she is the Lord’s maidservant. In other words, she surrendered all, having decided to follow Jesus no turning back, no turning back. Nothing would ever be the same.
We fast forward in her story, and we find her and Joseph arriving in Bethlehem, where she gives birth to a son. With no room in any of the inns, her precious child is born in a manger, in a shepherd’s cave, in a place where lambs were born. Soon afterwards their rest is interrupted by visitors. Shepherds who were tending sheep not far away came to see what they had been told by an Angel and then angels. Most likely, upon their arrival they tell Mary that angels showed up and announced that “there is born to you this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.” They most likely told her how “a multitude of the heavenly host were praising God and saying: “Glory to God in the highest, And on earth peace, goodwill toward men!” For Mary, it was another day that was anything about ordinary.
Luke now writes of some interesting actions that Mary did in Luke 2:19. He writes, “And Mary treasured up all these things, and pondered them in her heart.” She treasured up every action of the last 9 months. Think of a baby book. Mary keeps everything she hears and everything that happens in her heart. (One has to wonder if she “showed” her baby book to Luke.)
She not only treasured the moments she pondered on them. She sought to compare and understand the things she had heard, the things she experienced, and the things she saw. She pondered. She thought about these things. More than just keeping a journal she sought to understand how God was working and what it meant. Make no mistake Mary is a deeply spiritual woman. She is evaluating what God was doing and how His actions impacted her.
Are you racing through life or are you running the race that is set before and as you run you have special times to recap what has been happening as well as ponder the meaning of what has been happening. Do you evaluate your experiences to see how God was working? By the way, a teenager named David did. He realized a lot more was happening when he killed a bear, and he killed a lion. As he evaluated those experiences, he realized that God was working to protect him and strengthen him. Having evaluated those experiences he knew that he could kill an ungodly giant because God would deliver Him as He had with the bear and the lion.
From Mary (and David) we learn a growth tool for our spiritual lives in which we evaluate our experiences.
Are the actions of treasuring up and pondering by Mary happening occasionally with you? Take time to pause right now to ponder what God has been doing in you, around you, and through you.
Continue Strong journaling and pondering about the journey He has you on,
And remember to DATE the Word