When God speaks, He expects us to believe his word even though we may not fully understand all of the implications of His word. Mary’s story continues like this, “You will conceive and give birth to a son, and you will name him Jesus. He will be very great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his ancestor David. And he will reign over Israel forever, his Kingdom will never end. Mary asked the angel, ‘How can this happen? I am a virgin.’” (Luke 1:31-34, NLT)
Clearly, Mary doesn’t get it. 2,000 years later, we don’t get it. God has no problem expecting us to affirm things by faith that we don’t fully comprehend. The Bible is full of those instances. Think about the creation account in Genesis. The Bible affirms that God created all things, but doesn’t bother to tell us how he did it. What about the trinity? For centuries the church fathers have tried to adequately explain and illustrate how the trinity works. But honestly, the Bible doesn’t spell that out either. God just expects you to believe it. Speaking of Mary, the same is true of the virginal conception. We accept this truth, but don’t have the details as to how that whole thing really went down.
Which bring me to the next thought. Understanding is not the object of our faith, God is the object of our faith. Reading on in the narrative, the Bible states that, “The angel replied, ‘The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the baby to be born will be holy, and he will be called the Son of God. What’s more, your relative Elizabeth has become pregnant in her old age! People used to say she was barren, but she’s now in her sixth month. For nothing is impossible with God.’” (Luke 1:35-37, NLT)
If you base your responses to God based on things like understanding, comprehension, and security in the outcome, you’ll not see the power of God in your life. God expects you to affirm things he will never bother to understand. So the question at the end of the day is “Do I believe God?” “Do I trust God?” As long as we make understanding the condition of our obedience we will not get very far in our faith journeys, and our faith journeys will be based on the limited possibility of self rather than the limitless impossibilities of God.