This week’s meditations focus on prayer. This morning we ponder how our willingness to surrender our desires and will for ourselves to God’s desire and will for us makes a difference in how we pray and how we perceive God’s answer to prayer. In Luke 1:35, an angel tells Mary: “The Holy Spirit will come on you, and the power of the Most High will be upon you. And the holy one to be born will be called the Son of God.”

The words sound wonderful, looking at the conversation from an outsider’s perspective, but imagine if you were Mary. You are young. An angel has come to visit which, as everyone knows, angels don’t do. You aren’t married. You’re told you will have a child under decidedly unusual circumstances. And you are told that “the power of the Most High will be upon you,” whatever that means. 

The Greek word translated as “be upon you” means to “overshadow.” The power of God will overshadow you. It sounds frightening but when we look at the other five times the word appears in the New Testament the image it offers is of a shining cloud, surrounding and encircling with the brightness of the sun. Its roots go back to the Old Testament and to the years in the desert wilderness when God led the people of Israel by a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night. 

The promise made to Mary by the angel was that whatever she would face, God’s presence and power would be with her and would protect her.

We have been made a similar promise by Jesus as recorded in John’s Gospel. The Holy Spirit is with us, offering us the gift of God’s incredible presence and power. But if the Spirit is to “overshadow” us in a meaningful way, we’ve first got to get out of the way. We must spiritually surrender our will and wants to God’s will for us and, if you’re anything like me, surrender is not your favorite word. Spiritual surrender means trusting God completely. It means allowing God to overshadow you, to surround and encompass you so that you are less visible and more of God is seen in and around you. It is a surrender leading not to weakness or fear, but to strength, freedom, and power. Whose authority are you living under – yours or God’s? I suspect there are days you answer one way and other days that are the opposite. We all have decisions to make when it comes to if we pray, when we pray, and how we pray. But the Bible seems clear: if you want to be swept up in the shining presence and power of God you need to spiritually surrender. Something to ponder.