Me, Highly Favored?

God always defies human logic. He never reacts the way we think our actions would warrant, and He uses the most unlikely candidate to speak to, a teenage GIRL! God ended four hundred years of hopelessness with a divine visitation in the form of a greeting to a young girl by sending the angel Gabriel to her and saying,

“Greetings, you who are highly favored! The Lord is with you” (Luke 1:28).

Look at Mary’s response in Luke 1:29, the Bible says,

“Mary was greatly troubled at his words and wondered what kind of greeting this might be.”

In other words, Mary was skeptical and probably thinking,

“Me, highly favored?”

The word translated “troubled” in Luke 1:29 is such a strong and intensive verb, it is not used anywhere else in Scripture. It has the connotation of being greatly agitated or upset. Mary was in turmoil, I’m sure she thought that favor was for the elite group of society not an unknown girl from a poor town like Nazareth. But favor has nothing to do with your vocation or location. According to human standards Mary’s life was far from being elite or perfect.

Regardless of her initial reaction to all that Gabriel had to share with Mary regarding what was about to take place she humbly accepted the challenge by responding,

“I am the Lord’s servant,” Mary answered, “May your word to me be fulfilled.” Then the angel left her (Luke 1:38).