Audacity. Eight letters strung together creating a word with weight. According to the internet the true definition of the word is: “the willingness to take bold risks.” Audacity. A power packed word I don’t think we fully embrace.
In Luke 1 the angel Gabriel makes two house calls, both ending in the promise of a child. The first to an older couple, Zechariah and Elizabeth, who had long since passed their child bearing days. When the angel appeared to Zechariah to relay the glorious news he would soon become a father, Zechariah was left in disbelief. He doubted and questioned the things promised to him. Simply because in all his broken, humanness he could not comprehend what The Lord was doing. He could not make sense of all that was transpiring so he acted accordingly and questioned. Because Zechariah did not believe the words that formed the promise, the angel Gabriel took away Zechariah’s ability to speak words until the promise had come to pass.
The second house call the angel Gabriel made was to a young girl named Mary. The circumstances that surrounded that visit were, like the first, unique. Mary was a virgin. However, the angel went to Mary with the glorious news she would become a mother. Mother to the Son of the Most High. Yet again, an impossible set of conditions but a completely different reaction.
Mary asked Gabriel how these words could possibly be fulfilled because of the impossible circumstances that surrounded them. However, the angel made a statement that holds much weight: “For no word from God will ever fail.” And Mary simply responded in humility and faith and said: “I am The Lord’s servant.”
It’s hard to truly fathom an encounter with an angel. One who is bringing with him the promise of a child.Yet, Mary took a bold risk. She had the audacity to believe the words spoken would turn into fulfilled promises. She had the courage to believe in something so scandalous and outrageous no one would truly understand if she tried to explain it. So she clung tight to hope and believed that The Lord would be faithful to fulfill His promises to her.
We must start living audaciously. We must cling tight to words spoken over us walking in full confidence they will one day turn into fulfilled promises. As hard and messy as it’s going to be we have to leave behind the boxes we try and shove The Lord into. He is bigger and greater than any words I could ever string together or any events I could ever imagine. We have to cast aside our broken, human way of thinking and take a bold risk that most of the time truly won’t make sense. We must start living scandalously. We must have the audacity to believe what was promised.
“Blessed is she who has believed that the Lord would fulfill His promises to her.”
– Luke 1:45
