The Incarnation is a Thing Too Wonderful

Elizabeth Elliot Devotional

Title: The Incarnation is a Thing Too Wonderful

Some things are simply too wonderful for
explanation--the navigational system of the
Arctic tern, for example. How does it find its
way over twelve thousand miles of ocean from its
nesting grounds in the Arctic to its wintering
grounds in the Antarctic! Ornithologists have
conducted all sorts of tests without finding the
answer. Instinct is the best they can offer--no
explanation at all, merely a way of saying that
they really have no idea. A Laysan albatross was
once released 3,200 miles from its nest in the
Midway Islands. It was back home in ten days.

The migration of birds is a thing too wonderful.

When the angel Gabriel told Mary, "You will be
with child and give birth to a son," she had a
simple question about the natural: How can this
be, since I am a virgin?!

The answer had to do not with the natural but
with something far more mysterious than the
tern's navigation--something, in fact, entirely
supernatural: "The Holy Spirit will come upon
you, and the Most High will overshadow you" (Luke
1:35, NIV). That was too wonderful, and Mary was
silent. She had no question about the
supernatural. She was satisfied with God's
answer.

The truth about the Incarnation is a thing too
wonderful for us. Who can fathom what really took
place first in a virgin's womb in Nazareth and
then in a stable in Bethlehem!

At the end of the book of Job, instead of
answering his questions, God revealed to Job the
mystery of Who He was. Then Job despised himself.
"I have uttered what I did not understand,/
things too wonderful for me, which I did not
know" (Job 42:3, RSV).

In one of David's "songs of ascents" he wrote,
"My heart is not proud, O Lord,/ my eyes are not
haughty;/ I do not concern myself with great
matters/ or things too wonderful for me./ But I
have stilled and quieted my soul; / like a weaned
child with its mother,/ like a weaned child is my
soul within me" (Psalm 131:1,2, NIV).

A close and fretful inquiry into how spiritual
things "work" is an exercise in futility. Even
wondering how "natural" things are going to work
if you bring God into them--how God will answer a
prayer for money, for example, or how your
son-in-law is going to find a house for eight in
southern California (on a pastor's salary) is
sometimes an awful waste of energy. God knows
how. Why should I bother my head about it if I've
turned it over to Him? If the Word of the Lord to
us is that we are "predestined according to the
plan of him who works out everything in
conformity with his purpose" (Ephesians 1:11,
NIV), we may apprehend this fact by faith alone.
By believing that God means just what He says,
and by acting upon the word (faith always
requires action), we apprehend it--we take hold
of it, we make it our own. We cannot make it our
own by mere reason--"I don't see how
such-and-such an incident can possibly have
anything to do with any divine 'plan.'"

Why should we see how! Is it not sufficient that
we are told that it is so? We need not see. We
need only believe and proceed on the basis of
that assured fact.

Mary's acceptance of the angel's answer to her
innocent question was immediate, though she could
not imagine the intricacies and mysteries of its
working in her young virgin body. She surrendered
herself utterly to God in trust and obedience.

Do you understand what is going on in the
invisible realm of your life with God? Do you see
how the visible things relate to the hidden Plan
and Purpose? Probably not. As my second husband
Addison Leitch used to say, "You can't unscrew
the Inscrutable." But you do see at least one
thing, maybe a very little thing, that He wants
you to do. "Now what I am commanding you today is
not too difficult [other translations say too
hard, too wonderful] for you or beyond your
reach. It is not up in heaven.... nor is it
beyond the sea.... no, the word is very near you;
it is in your mouth and in your heart so you may
obey it" (Deuteronomy 30:11-14, NIV).

Let it suffice you, as it sufficed Mary, to know
that God knows. If it's time to work, get on with
your job. If it's time to go to bed, go to sleep
in peace. Let the Lord of the Universe do the
worrying.