225: "Mary's Contemplative Nature" with Rebekah Hargraves

12/21/24 • 32 min

I am delighted to be joining you on the show for an episode I have wanted to record for a while now! Today we will be covering the important and timely Advent topic of “Mary’s Contemplative Nature”. May you come away from this episode inspired and encouraged for the busy days ahead!

What I Cover on this Episode:

~The glimpse Luke 2:19 gives us into Mary’s contemplative nature

~The striking comparison and connection between the content of Mary’s Magnificat in Luke 1 and what we observe her doing in Luke 2:19

~12 reflection questions for you to contemplate and prayerfully process through this Advent

~The many blessings of the contemplative life

~Why it’s so important to follow Mary’s example in cultivating a life of slowness, stillness, awareness, contemplation, and processing with the Lord

~The context surrounding Luke 2:19 and what stands out about it

~Mary’s example of making time for contemplation even in the middle of an incredibly stretching and full season

~Where Mary’s theological depth of insight came from

~How we hear the still small voice of God

~How the contemplative life leads to faith-building ebenezer stones of remembrance

~The sense of peace and calm which the contemplative life gives us

~How the contemplative life equips us to fight back against spiritual warfare

~The contemplative life as an example to the watching world

~And More!

Beyond the Boxes is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

Resources Mentioned:

My Substack

Quotes to Remember:

“What we read in Luke 2:19 about Mary ‘treasuring all these things in her heart and meditating on them’ goes along incredibly well with the content of her Magnificat in Luke 1. The connection is striking. What was she treasuring? What was she meditating on? Based on the context, she’s thinking about what God has just done in and for and through the shepherds. And if we know anything about shepherds during this time in history, we know they were the lowly despised ones, the outcasts. And it was to these very people that God chose to reveal Christ’s birth. And it was people precisely like the lowly shepherds that Mary praises God for raising up. In Luke 1, she praises Him for his hear for the lowly, and in Luke 2 she is contemplating what she has just seen God do in real time proof of His heart for the lowly. I find that to be so strikingly beautiful.”

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“What I want us to understand about Mary’s contemplative nature is that as all of these things are literally happening in, to, and around her, she is not checking out. So much has and is happening to her, but she is not checking out. She is not rushing through. She is actually stopping and entering fully into each present moment as they come. She’s taking everything in. She’s noticing all of it and not forgetting a bit of it. She’s pondering what God is doing. She is seeing and taking it in and then going a step further to actually meditating on what He is doing. In the midst of the busyness, in the midst of full days that are full of earth-shattering miracles, she is stopping to treasure these things and to mediate on them.”

“Mary is clearly a contemplative at heart, which I would say could explain her theological depth of insight that we see in her Magnificat - after all, there are so many blessings of the contemplative life, not the least of which are depth of theological insight and a close, daily relationship with God.”

“The contemplative life enables us to actually hear from God. God does not shout. His is a still-small voice. He whispers to our hearts, minds, and souls. That is how He speaks to us. And in order to hear from Him, we have to slow down, get quiet, and be still and know. We have to have a contemplative life to truly hear from Him, to take the time to be in the Word, to take the time for prayer, to take the time to hear from Him.”

“The contemplative life enables us to actually be able to notice, to be aware of, and to remember what God is doing. When we are rushing through life so fast, at breakneck speeds, and we don’t have time to sit, to be still and know, to cultivate quiet, to sit in the stillness with the Lord, when we are hurried and harried, overwhelmed and stressed going from one thing to another all day long, every week, every month, we are unable to notice, to be aware of, and to remember what God is doing.”

“It is only through seeing and remembering what God is doing and has done that our faith is built as we are made aware of Him and how active He truly is in our lives.”

“The contemplative life also enables us to proclaim to others what God i...

What I Cover on this Episode:

~The glimpse Luke 2:19 gives us into Mary’s contemplative nature

~The striking comparison and connection between the content of Mary’s Magnificat in Luke 1 and what we observe her doing in Luke 2:19

~12 reflection questions for you to contemplate and prayerfully process through this Advent

~The many blessings of the contemplative life

~Why it’s so important to follow Mary’s example in cultivating a life of slowness, stillness, awareness, contemplation, and processing with the Lord

~The context surrounding Luke 2:19 and what stands out about it

~Mary’s example of making time for contemplation even in the middle of an incredibly stretching and full season

~Where Mary’s theological depth of insight came from

~How we hear the still small voice of God

~How the contemplative life leads to faith-building ebenezer stones of remembrance

~The sense of peace and calm which the contemplative life gives us

~How the contemplative life equips us to fight back against spiritual warfare

~The contemplative life as an example to the watching world

~And More!

Beyond the Boxes is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

Resources Mentioned:

My Substack

Quotes to Remember:

Thanks for reading Beyond the Boxes! This post is public so feel free to share it.

“It is only through seeing and remembering what God is doing and has done that our faith is built as we are made aware of Him and how active He truly is in our lives.”

“The contemplative life also enables us to proclaim to others what God i...

Previous Episode

224: "When God Leaves Something Out" with Jill Atogwe

Jill Atogwe is a wife, mom of 4, writer, and author of a brand new children’s book, “Left Out: Believing My Story is for God’s Glory”. She is passionate about encouraging others with the truth of the goodness and wisdom of God’s plan - even when it doesn’t look like we want it to. Our prayer is that you would come away from this episode deeply encouraged and better equipped to walk the path of your own unique and challenging life story.

What We Chat About on This Episode:

~Jill’s new children’s book, Left Out, what led her to write it, and what readers can expect

~The things we feel like God left out when He made us and how that part of our story is for our good and His glory

~The reality that this book is for our hearts as adults just as much as it is for kids; how its message ministered to my own heart personally on a difficult path I am walking myself

~How Jill has come to discover for herself that what God left out is part of her story, for her good, and God’s glory; how she has helped her kids understand this truth for themselves

~How Jill has helped her kids to embrace their own uniqueness and differences

~Jill’s advice for parents who want to know how to foster a positive self-image and confidence in their kids

~Teaching kids to be noticers

~Getting our kids to think for themselves

~Helping parents to understand how they can address more sensitive topics with their kids in a way that is inclusive and respectful

~Training our kids to be both curious and kind

~How to help kids who are dealing with anxiety; Jill’s own experience with OCD

~The power of memorizing Scripture with our kids

~Choosing our kids and their wellbeing, even when it’s hard and exhausting

~Understanding that if God left something out of our story, that thing He left out would not have been good for us (even if it’s something we really wanted!)

~Delighting in the Lord and not in what we think we want

~Being encouraged during hard times of trial by heroes of the faith

~What Jill has learned from hard trials she has gone through and trials she has watched loved ones experience

~Comforting others with the comfort we have received

~The good that comes from trials

~Learning alongside our kids

~And more!

Inspiring Quotes to Remember:

“The things we feel were left out when God made us are the things that can make us feel left out as we grow. And the heart of the book is that what God left out is part of our story - it’s all for our good and all for His glory.”

“It’s a blessing for us to be different, not just us set apart singularly, but for all of us from one another, that God is so creative that He made so many different things happen to serve a purpose. It would be so boring if we were all exactly alike.”

“When stuck in fear and anxiety, it can be so helpful to expose our children to the Word daily, to have special hymns to go through together that are comforting, and to read stories of a real God who created us in a special way and did not make any mistakes. This is how we help our kids and ourselves to learn to trust Him.”

“We can look back on our life and see big capital T Trials and moments of deep struggle and see how God transformed us through them and used those moments for His glory. So when I’m in the thick of it, that is what I look to. I also look to heroes of the faith and to people in the Word like Paul and David. I look to people who have gone before me and am encouraged and comforted by their examples.”

“This won’t be forever. The brokenness of this world and the brokenness of our bodies is not forever. But while we are here, we need to be honest with our friends and loved ones so we can all walk in this together and be lifted up by those around us, trusting that the Lord will comfort us in our time of need so that we can comfort others.”

“Psalm 119:17 stands out to me, where the Psalmist says it is good for him to be afflicted so that he might lea...

Next Episode

226: “Cultivating a Life of Passion, Productivity, and Rest” with Karen Ehman

Karen Ehman is a wife, mom of grown children, author of numerous books, and Bible teacher who is passionate about writing and speaking to encourage women to live their priorities and display the gospel to the watching world. Our prayer is that you would come away from this episode feeling equipped and encouraged to cultivate a life of passion, productivity, and rest this new year!

What We Chat About on This Episode:

~The new book Karen co-authored with Ruth Schwenk, what readers can expect, and what led to this being their next work

~The deep joy that can come even in the hardest of life’s circumstances; the practices Karen and Ruth have put in place which enable them to experience this joy

~The four sections of the workbook and what led them to set it up that way

~Assessing whether or not what we are spending our time in is lining up with the priorities we say we have

~Assessing what God-given passions you have that go along with His call on your life

~Tips, tricks, and tools that help you find your follow through on your passions and priorities

~Advice for how to live your everyday with forethought, planning, and intentionality

~The crucial importance of making prayer a priority

~Teaching people how to treat you by your behavior and boundaries

~The happiness we find when we invest our hearts, souls, minds, and strength in the right things

~Having boundaries in place for our phone usage

~Cultivating a life-giving routine of both productivity and rest

~The power of taking several minutes a day to sit in silence and think nothing

~A few important questions to ask yourself at the end of the day to prepare yourself well for the next day

~Assessing everything that is currently on your plate and whether or not it is time to do some plate-scraping

~What it takes to obtain wisdom

~The important part the fear of the Lord has to play in all this

~And more!

Inspiring Quotes to Remember:

“We wrote this book on enjoying your life in a season of very hard circumstances for each of us. To look at our circumstances, you wouldn’t have thought we would be happy. But it wasn’t situational happiness that we were experiencing. It was deep joy in knowing that none of what we were going through surprised God. He knew we would go through it, and He promised to be with us. Despite some pretty dire circumstances, we were still seeing these pockets of joy.”

“We started to ask ourselves what it was we had put in place, what we had done, what God had taught us over the years as adults, that had positioned us to still feel like life was worth living and to still discover joy despite the circumstances all around us. That is what led to the writing of this book.”

“When it comes to living our priorities, all of us have two things in our lives: we have relationships and we have responsibilities, or people and projects. We tend to lean to one or the other extreme, so finding the proper perspective and learning to manage that tension is what we address in the first section of the book.”

“God has wired you with passions, with interests and talent and spiritual gifts. He has a calling on your life, something that you should be doing and could be doing for the Kingdom.”

“We need to be praying about our days, saying, ‘Lord, there are going to be times today when I need to get work done, times when I instead need to tend to a human being. Would You please help me to order my day in such a way that I get my work done without neglecting my people? And would You tap me on the heart if I need to stop what I am doing and tend to a person and also nudge me when I need to ignore that text message and get my work done instead?’”

“You teach people how to treat you. You teach them by what you allow and what you don't allow. We want to love and serve people, but we can’t be at everybody’s beck and call. We really need to have boundaries in place, best practices, and ways to free up time for the things that really matter.”

“We so often think happiness comes from money, notoriety, possessions, position, or popularly. But research shows that it comes more from feeling like, a the end of the day, we invested in something that mattered. But so often we are just spending our time on things that don’t matter - like scrolling our phones. If we do not have time limits on that scrolling, we will waste countless hours each week on meaningless content.”

“What really makes our lives enriched is investing into things that matter, investing our hearts, minds, souls, and strength into making someone else’s life better. Listening to that neighbor who just lost their spouse and encouraging and doing something nice for them rather than just ingesting fluff all day long goes a long way.”

“We don’t rest b...