I memorized the first half of Mary’s Magnificat on accident when I was in college. I was in the midst of my short-lived song-writing phase and read the portion in Luke 1 where Mary meets with her cousin Elizabeth. It’s written in verse, and is sometimes called Mary’s Song. Since I obviously didn’t know the tune, I made one up myself and to this day, I can’t read that portion of Luke without hearing the tune in my head.
It isn’t a very good tune, but it doesn’t matter because music helps the words stick. And these words of Mary’s? These words represent one of my favorite images of worship in the Bible.
Living as a good girl, I was always my own point of reference. I was the initiator. I was responsible for action, service, measuring up. If I wrote a book about being a Christian when I was 22, I would have started with chapter 13 – Worship and Service. I thought these were the most important things. Everything started with me. That’s why I was so proud of myself when things went well and so devastated when they didn’t. Because I was my own point of reference.
Mary is the opposite of a good girl. God split her life wide open. If she had been living as her own point of reference, the angel’s appearance would have sent her into a tailspin. But it didn’t. It set her legs to walking and her soul on fire. The Magnificat was her simple, heart-felt response. She responded to the truth that was already in her because God came down.
We are all brilliant, aren’t we? We are big, we are all suns with rotating earths and planets and star-stuff.
And also, the world is flat. And Al Gore invented the internet.
What a sigh of relief to know, to really know that I am not the center of the universe. To know that every breath, decision, meal, step, and turn is worship if I am doing it with knowledge that He holds all things together. When I forget that truth, when I step back into the center spoke of the wheel? That is when my breathing gets shallow, my head starts to ache, my hands tremble ever so slightly. We are not created to be the center.
group discussion
Chapter 13 highlights the truth that we are a whole people. We cannot diagram our lives into segments, not really. Worship covers the circle, full. Do you struggle with the concept of worship in everything? In what ways are you beginning to see your living as worship?
In Christ, our safety has already been decided. By faith, we believe it to be true. In that case, our greatest enemy is not losing our salvation, trying to become worthy of love, or disappointing God. Our greatest enemy is forgetfulness – forgetting what we already have in Christ. Forgetting that we have been placed into safety because of him. In Chapter 14 we talk about setting our minds on truth. What does this practically look like for you?
book club information
- We only have two weeks left, but if you are just now seeing these book club posts, here is where you can get a copy of a book (Amazon, B&N, LifeWay, Family Christian).
- If you have blog, consider writing your own post and hosting discussion with your readers. Link up in the linky below directly to the post you’ve written about this weeks reading, not just to your main blog. We want to make it easy to find your thoughts.
Two Weeks Left:
July 19 :: Chapters 15 – 16
July 26 :: Chapters 17 – 18**Evening Event on August 2nd:: If you are local-ish, we are planning an evening event in Greensboro, North Carolina at the end of our study. If your are close enough to make it live and in person, we’ll be meeting at Westover Church at 7pm on Thursday, August 2nd.
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