God has favor for you. That means approval, complete acceptance, unmerited kindness and ridiculous goodness, is directed at you from the Almighty. However, faith is required to receive favor.
Favor doesn’t always show up looking like something you should be giddy over. Favor often first begins with frustration. Sometimes being highly favored by the Almighty feels more like falling apart. Sometimes favor shows up on the scene by means of seemingly bad news.
Where are you frustrated? Where is everything just falling apart? Where have you tried and tried and experienced nothing but failure? Where has bad news been delivered? What if I told you this is the beginning of favor? What if I told you this could be the process of God’s greatest work in your life?
Favor doesn’t always feel like favor. I think of favor as everything you touch turning to success. Isn’t favor having everyone adore you? If you’re favored shouldn’t things happen quickly and easily with minimal effort? Wait … maybe we have favor all wrong.
What if favor is the process of God’s greatest work in your life. Favor is being lead somewhere ridiculously good, but the route there may be one you wouldn’t have chosen. Favor is all things working together for good, but first it’s going to look the opposite of good.
Look at Mary, the mother of Jesus. This young girl had a promising future. She had found a good man, he had proposed and she said yes. She was planning her wedding and dreaming of her honeymoon. Then everything changes. All her good plans were turned upside down. What she imagined as her future was dramatically crushed when an angel shows up.
LUKE 1: 26-38 (TPT)
During the sixth month of Elizabeth’s pregnancy, the angel Gabriel was sent from God’s presence to an unmarried girl named Mary, living in Nazareth, a village in Galilee. She was engaged to a man named Joseph, a true descendant of King David. Gabriel appeared to her and said, “Rejoice, beloved young woman, for the Lord is with you and you are anointed with great favor.”
Mary was deeply troubled over the words of the angel and bewildered over what this may mean for her. But the angel reassured her, saying, “Do not yield to your fear, Mary, for the Lord has found delight in you and has chosen to surprise you with a wonderful gift. You will become pregnant with a baby boy, and you are to name him Jesus. He will be supreme and will be known as the Son of the Highest. And the Lord God will enthrone him as King on the throne of his ancestor David. He will reign as King of Israel forever, and his reign will have no limit.”
Mary said, “But how could this happen? I am still a virgin!”
Gabriel answered, “The Spirit of Holiness will fall upon you and almighty God will spread his shadow of power over you in a cloud of glory! This is why the child born to you will be holy, and he will be called the Son of God. What’s more, your aged aunt, Elizabeth, has also become pregnant with a son. The ‘barren one’ is now in her sixth month. Not one promise from God is empty of power. Nothing is impossible with God!”
Then Mary responded, saying, “Yes! I will be a mother for the Lord! As his servant, I accept whatever he has for me. May everything you have told me come to pass.” And the angel left her.
The angel says “Rejoice, Mary, girl you’re going to have an unexplained pregnancy. Your fiance Joseph is going to want to question leaving you. People are going to talk about you and put you to shame and you’re not going to be able to explain this to anyone. Everything you planned has now come crashing down. Oh and all of this is happening because you are anointed with great favor. Be happy about it, okay?”
And don’t you know Mary wanted to say … WAIT WHAT?!!!! This doesn’t feel like favor. This feels like failure. This feels like everything good is falling apart. This feels like frustration right now.
While I never experienced a virgin pregnancy and found myself in a pickle exactly like this, I remember the day I was fired from my job. I was fired because I was pregnant and the company was being sold to a new owner who didn’t want one of the only employees to be 2 months from maternity leave. So they fired me. Bye bye now. Your work here has been greatly appreciated, now we need you to go.
And this was favor. Favor with a God who had bigger, better plans than I did. Favor with a God who slammed a door I would have never closed myself, so I could keep moving down a hallway with better opportunities.
We don’t always see favor as it’s happening, but what if we could develop the faith to believe any way? In the middle of the storm, we are favored. In the middle of the hardship, we are favored. As things fall apart, we are favored. While we struggle, we are favored. Yes, faith is required to receive favor.
Favor doesn’t feel like warm fuzzies and kitten cuddles with sprinkles. Favor feels like a girl with big plans for her life being told the unthinkable is happening to her and it’s going to turn her whole world upside down. This is favor. This is being chosen. This is being set apart.
The angel said to Mary, ““Do not yield to your fear, Mary, for the Lord has found delight in you and has chosen to surprise you with a wonderful gift.”
Insert your own name now, my sister. Do not yield to your fear, __. (Angela, Heather, Courtney, Sarah, Tammy, Katie, Emily, Catherine, Carrie, Rhonda, Amy, Brandy, Jamie, Jenny, Jennifer, Jill, Lauren, Lisa, Megan, Monica, Shannon, Theresa ….)
Have you been yielding to your fear? You’ve stopped. You’ve held back. You’ve given up. You’ve allowed fear, doubt, worry and anxiety to fill your mind and pause your next steps. Hear God say to you today, “Do not yield to your fear, my girl. I have a wonderful gift for you.”
Will you trust what God is doing right now in your life, even when it feels frustrating? Even when on the surface it looks like failure and 3 steps way back? Will you trust God’s words in Isaiah 55: 8-9 “‘For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,’ declares the Lord. ‘As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.'”
THINK HIGHER MY SISTER. Here where things aren’t as you imagined and you’re highly uncomfortable and uncertain … think higher. HIGHER. (There’s a word for you.) God wants to take you higher now. It’s time to step into his good plans for your life, and you’re going to be stepping UP.
Mary didn’t understand what was happening to her. What the angel told her seemed impossible and highly unfavorable, but she believed. She said, “Yes! I will be a mother for the Lord! As his servant, I accept whatever he has for me. May everything you have told me come to pass.”
It’s easy for us to assume we would have done the same, but we have the benefit of knowing the rest of the story. Mary didn’t. Mary didn’t know how Joseph would respond. Mary didn’t know how her “situation” would be handled. Mary didn’t know how she would raise the perfect son of God. She had never been a mother before. She didn’t know what she was doing!
But what an example Mary gives us when it all still looks like a total mess. She shows us to handle our own good plans being wrecked. She shows us how to face the potential of our name being ruined, our reputation being questioned, and facing the unknown with faith. Yes! As God’s servant, I accept whatever he has for me.
And to this, the angel says, “Not one promise from God is empty of power. Nothing is impossible with God!”
This is favor. This is faith to receive favor.
Will you have the faith to receive favor and not run from it?
Will you say, “YES, LORD, I ACCEPT WHAT YOU HAVE FOR ME!”
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