Your Love Sonnet To God

December 20, 2016

Your Love Sonnet To God

Elizabeth gave a glad cry and exclaimed to Mary, “God has blessed you above all women, and your child is blessed.

Luke 1:42

The people of Israel were living between the Roman occupation and oppression of their land and King Herod, their immoral tyrant of a King. There are many ways the people of Israel could have responded to living in such desperate times. Mary and Elizabeth model for us the way God wants his people to respond. (Luke 1:39-56) From their words and actions, it is clear they immersed themselves in Holy Scripture. In the psalms and the writings of the prophets, they found God’s compassion and mercy. In the Word of God, they found hope in the promises of God to come and deliver them from evil. Almost every word of Mary’s beautiful song is a quotation of scripture. Elizabeth’s child is John the Baptist, and his preaching will echo Mary’s song.

Mary and Elizabeth are far from naïve. There is yet to come much pain and sorrow in their lives. How then could they speak with such excitement and joy about a child who was still thirty weeks from birth? I believe they could celebrate with such uninhibited joy because they knew they were participating in God’s plan of salvation. When they realized God was literally moving within them to fulfill his promises, their spirits responded with words of reverence, joy and scripture.

Here’s the rub: we too are participating in God’s plan of salvation. Each of us, as a follower of Jesus, is commissioned by God to be used as His instrument of grace to reveal His divine love to others. When we embrace our calling, we become aware of the countless ways God wants to use us to share His great love for all people.

When I read Mary’s song, I think of that most beautiful of sonnets, Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s Sonnet XLIII. It begins “How do I love thee? Let me count the ways. I love thee to the depth and breadth and height my soul can reach . . .” Ms. Browning was so effervescing because of her personal experience in being loved by her husband, Robert. I believe each of us can be just as effervescing though our personal experience of being loved, and used as an instrument of grace, by our Abba Father. Can you imagine how your song, your love sonnet to God may go?

Sē’lah

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(Selah is a word that appears in the Book of Psalms that I often use as the Complimentary Closing in my correspondence. Its meaning, as I use the word, is to pause and think about these things.)

These meditations are written by Alex M. Knight as he seeks the life in Christ as his way of life.  The meditations are published on the BLOG, http://seekingthelifeinchrist.blogspot.com/ and they are also distributed on the Constant Contact email server. You may subscribe to this email service by sending an email to: amkrom812@gmail.com. The BLOG is also available on Amazon Kindle, by subscription.

Publications by Alex M. Knight:

·        Seeking the Life in Christ, Meditations on the New Testament and Psalms has been published and is now available at Amazon.com in paperback and Kindle.

·        The second edition of  First Think – Then Pray is available on Amazon Kindle.

·        Meditations on The Story of My Life as told by Jesus Christ has been released as an e-book on Amazon Kindle.

Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.