Message Magazine’s Online Devotional for Sunday, May 3, 2015
Based upon: Luke 1:39-45
Women are known to be very body aware. They often know when something is going very wrong inside, and even know when something is going quite well. Sometimes the sense of what might be going on inside can alert her to the need to see a doctor. At other times, these feelings drive euphoria and give a general sense of wellbeing; that something great is happening.
Not long after the angel visited Mary with great news of the Messiah’s conception, she travelled to Juda to see her cousin, Elisabeth. She entered the house and called to Elisabeth, who was then miraculously six months pregnant. As she heard Mary’s salutation, something unusual and invigorating happened inside. Elisabeth’s baby leaped! I have been told how amazing it feels when a child moves inside the womb. While it can be painful at times for women with fibroids or other complications, most movements, I am told, are amazing. To have a little life moving around inside is indescribable.
However, in this case, baby John’s movement was much more. There was a spiritual exchange that God created here. Mary, who was filled with the Spirit and pregnant with the Son of God spoke. Elisabeth, who was pregnant with the forerunner of Christ’s earthly ministry and much more, heard Mary’s voice. As the sound waves traveled through the air and entered Elisabeth’s ear canal, her eardrum began to vibrate. Those vibrations were handed off through three little bones to her inner ear via tiny hairs, which were then picked up by a nerve that signaled her brain that there was a message for her. Her brain distinguished, deciphered, and recognized those electrical impulses, and as she heard the voice of her dear cousin, the boy leaped inside, and she was filled with the Holy Ghost. Did you get that? She heard the voice of her dear cousin, the boy leaped inside, and she was filled with the Holy Ghost. What an amazing sequence of events. What an amazing experience for these women of God to have that they could share with generations to come! In kindred spirit, they both experienced their God at the deepest of levels, and knew without doubt that He was present.
As I reflect upon this story I’m enraptured, and it occurs to me that we must never underestimate the special ways God communicates His love and essence to women. Does He speak to men? Yes! Does He manifest Himself to us? Yes! Yet, we must not fail to realize that as different as men are from women, so are some of our experiences with our God. Just as my wife has a womb and I do not, so does she have experiences with God that I do not, because we were designed differently.
For me, the unsung moral of this story is that I would do well to support and embrace the experiences of holy women and their special encounters with God. In the same way we have the record of these women’s experiences to give us courage thousands of years later, we can take courage in the testimonies of women in our day. Relish those testimonies, and then God for them.
