Responsibility

In verse twenty-nine, it reads: “And when she saw him, she was troubled at his saying, and cast in her mind what manner of salutation this should be.”* (Luke 1:29)

Now I understand something else. This was a person, that, in her heart and mind, had the habit of reflecting and meditating. She was the kind of person that didn’t think just on the surface. Mary was the kind of person that was used to talking with the Lord and dealing with Him and inquiring in the things that were spiritual. I have a feeling that Mary had been delving into many of life’s mysteries and profound things that pertain to marriage and good solid companionship and relationships. She wasn’t a shallow girl, was she? She wanted to know and understand, and she hadn’t just begun to want to know. She prayed, and asked the Lord to open her understanding. And now something so unusual, so out of the ordinary, had happened. An angelic being had visited her. She began to cast about in her mind, “What does this mean? What’s involved? What does this come to?”

I’m kind of leery of emotional experiences that get people all fired up and move them off into things. After a while the emotions die down and they began to think, “I didn’t realize all that was involved.” I remember one young sister who got saved, and she hadn’t started out well in life.

Her mother had started out by marrying someone who wasn’t saved. That was not a smart thing to do. Her mother paid for that. One of the ways she paid for it was her oldest daughter. When the daughter grew up, she was her daddy’s darling. She exhibited a skill at playing the piano, which was greatly encouraged. She was praised a great deal for it; frankly, she was kind of spoiled.

This girl came along and got up to years, and she decided to get married. She married a boy whose father was a drunkard all his life, though his mother had been a saint. And so these young people started out in life together.

There are a lot of battles that take place where nobody sees you. There’s a lot of adjustments to take place when there’s no audience to watch you. One day this girl got up in the congregation, and she was in dead earnest—something had stirred her in her heart. She’d been married for some years, and she said, “Somebody ought to tell them; somebody ought to tell young girls that if they spill something on the floor, it stays there until they take care of it!” She was so earnest about it, she didn’t even notice the reaction to what she had just said. She didn’t realize something; it was dawning on her what she had gotten into and what it all meant. She was thinking about that. I thought, “They had been telling them all along; this one just didn’t listen.” It was true, too. She had begun to realize some things late, hadn’t she? It didn’t have a happy ending, I am sorry to say. Her marriage ended up falling apart.

This sister that we’re reading about in the Bible today—I get the feeling that this was a girl that was used to giving serious, sober, reflections to things. Counting the cost. Consecrating. When do you think you’re going to learn to consecrate? When you turn 21? When you get married? When your first child comes? Oh, that’s way, way late!

This girl had been getting ready for this—I don’t know how long. I suspect a long while. And her immediate reaction of her thinking proves, doesn’t it? Look at it again: “When she saw him, she was troubled at his saying.” There was something to this. “Lord, what does it mean; what does it involve?” “What is being asked of me; what should I do?” Life goes beyond our dreams, beyond our air castles, beyond the best that we can project.

“She was troubled at his saying, and cast in her mind what manner of salutation this should be.”* (Luke 1:29)

Somebody says, “I don’t want to be troubled about anything; I just want to have fun. I just want to enjoy myself—you’re only young once. I want to get through down here without all these heavy problems—that’s for the old folks.”

“It is good for a man that he bear the yoke in his youth.”* (Lamentations 3:27) It’s good to measure up to responsibilities; to come to terms with the everyday tasks that need to be done. To began to understand the nature of how Mama and Daddy’s marriage work. “Why are they able to respect each other?” “How are they able to adjust to each other?” “Lord, help me now in the place I am in, to adjust to the whole family; to get along.” In other words, there are some things we should be troubled about. There are some things that you and I ought to be considering: “This is one of the hard parts of this; this is one of the knotty things; this is one of the things we need to be sure we get just right.”