Hello my loves and thank you for tuning in on my blog again. Today, I would like to dive into the first post of a new series that I will be putting out her. The title might give it away a little bit but as of today I am launching a series that will focus on women from the bible. What did their life look like? What were the challenges they had to deal with? How did God bless them and what can we learn from them? I love the #womenempowerwomen idea and I thought, who better to learn from then those who God has chosen to write about in his holy word.
Who is Elizabeth?
In the first episode, I would like to focus on Elizabeth. Elizabeth was the daughter of Aaron and is introduced into the bible at a later age. She is first talked about in Luke 1. She was married to Zechariah, who was a priest and they were a God fearing couple. Immediately in Luke 1 verse six, Elizabeth and Zechariah are introduced as follows “Both of them were righteous in the sight of God, observing all the Lord’s commands and decrees blamelessly.” WOW, this is quite an introduction already. I was pretty impressed by this actually. To think that God has decided to be putting these words on paper about this couple amazes me. It is an indication of how much of a God fearing couple they were. What is immediately stated after this sixth verse is that they were without children as Elizabeth was unable to receive and they were both very old.
What does this mean?
Now I was attracted to this passage about Elizabeth as I find the combination of verse six and seven very interesting. First it is stated that she (and Zechariah) are righteous in the sight of God, but then it follows up saying that she is unable to receive and that humanly seen it is too late as they are both very old. It is good to know that in that time women who were unable to get pregnant were very much at the bottom of the social hierarchy. A big part of your life goals existed of carrying children and ‘creating’ an off-spring. When you were not able to do that, you were basically a nobody that had nothing to bring to society. This means that Elizabeth lived a big part of her life in seclusion and has been disgraced by other people her whole adult life. And still, she was righteous in the sight of God! What an example.
What happened next?
One day Zechariah was called to perform his priest duties and he was chosen to offer the incense in the temple. This was very special as this job would probably be performed once in a lifetime by a priest. Then, when Zechariah is inside the temple an angel appears. A ‘fun’ fact is that most of the priest were with a group Sadducees and they didn’t believe in angels. Needless to say, Zechariah was terrified. This angel gave him the biggest news ever: they would receive a son right out of Gods hand that they were to call him John. Imagine Zechariah’s confusion about this whole situation and as he is human and cannot always understand Gods ways, he also had some disbelief. Therefore he asked the angel how to be sure of this all. As a result, Zechariah wouldn’t be able to speak until his son was born.
Now back to Elizabeth’s point of view. Imagine having accepted the fact that you will not be having any children and that you are too old for it anyways and then your husband comes home from church, not being able to speak but trying to tell you that you will have a baby as an angel promised him that. WHAT?! I think my response would be exactly that. However, it is nowhere stated that Elizabeth did not believe her husband. Soon, Elizabeth turned out pregnant just like the angel promised. What is interesting is that in verse 24, it is stated that when Elizabeth became pregnant she remained in seclusion for five months. What was she doing you might ask yourself? In these five months Elizabeth remained segregated from the outside world to fully devote herself to God and being thankful to Him for the baby that was growing inside her. FIVE. WHOLE. MONTHS. That is a long time to keep something secret, especially when it is something that you are SO excited over. But, Elizabeth wasn’t thinking about herself, her focus laid fully on God her heavenly Father who had given her the most beautiful gift of all.
What can we learn from this?
I dare you to make a list of things you are thankful for. Now behind every point, write how many days you have been thankful to God for those good things. Now write a list of the harder things that happened to you in life and think about how many times you have thought ‘why is God doing this to me?’ or ‘what did I do to deserve this?’. When I stick with myself, this has a shocking outcome. I tend to hold on to bad things a lot longer asking myself or God why this has happened then I do to the good stuff that has happened to me. Now look at Elizabet, someone who has been looked down on her whole adult life because of something that she could not change even if she wanted to. How many times must she have felt helpless, full of pain and not understood by others. Still, God was her power and she managed to live righteous in His eyes even though she was not righteous in the eyes of the people. Let Elizabeth be a beautiful example to us ladies to be thankful, even though life doesn’t go the way you planned it to. Even though sometimes it seems like no one understands you and even though it doesn’t seem like God has your best interest at heart. Dear reader, please never forget this:
For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. – Jeremiah 29:11
That was it for the first week of women empower women. I hope you enjoyed reading it and if you ever have any suggestions or want to join me in my bible studies send me a message on Instagram or send me an e-mail.
Much love,
Marina
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