Luke 1:5 introduces Zacharias, an aging priest. He has served God as a priest all of his adult life. The passage goes on to explain that he and his wife are blameless before God. In other words they were both faithful servants of God, living life in obedience to God, keeping His law faithfully. We learn from the passage that Zacharias and his wife had never had children, and clearly they had passed the years in which they could have children. They were both old! We also learn in the passage that they had prayed for their whole life to be blessed with a child, but that had never happened, and now was not possible. Still Zacharias served God in the Temple. I can imagine that just like us Zacharias was going through the hum-drum daily grind of life, doing the daily routines, almost subconsciously, automatically going through the days. He was not ready for what God was going to bring loudly into his life.
It would seem that the priests took turns to perform the various temple rituals. It was now Zacharias’ turn to burn incense before God in the Temple. From the passage we can see that typically the priest would go into the temple burn the incense at the altar of incense, then come out to deliver a message to the attendees of the temple service. He would not dwell in he temple, that part of the ritual is short, only long enough to set up and get the incense burning.
Zacharias’ life would now be turned upside-down! In the process of doing his duties an angel of God suddenly stands to the right hand side of the altar of incense. Finding himself in fear, the angel announces to Zacharias that his prayers for a child would be answered. Not only would Zacharias be blessed with a son, but he will be a great servant of God. Wow, his lifelong prayer is going to be answered! but his reaction was not so. I and my wife are too old he said to the angel.
This is where I find myself often, and I don’t think I’m alone. I know what God says He will do. I know what God expects of me. But I get in the daily grind. The hum-drum of life, and I think, God will not do those things that He says He’ll do. I doubt! Our lives as believers, followers of Christ are not that different from the life of Zacharias. We know what we are supposed to do as believers, we do our best to walk in integrity, in the will of God, but doubt creeps in, that is at least how it goes in my life, in my walk with God. Pay attention, God will bring things, circumstances, people into our lives to bring us back on track. For Zacharias it was a bit drastic. He was made to not be able to speak until the baby was born. It was a statement not only to Zacharias that God had done a thing in his life, but this sudden inability to speak was meant to alert the temple goers that day that God was about to do something. After all to fulfill his duties that day Zacharias needed to deliver a speech to those temple goers. The passage tells us that he tried to speak to the people, I suppose if you think about it, once again doubting what the angel had told him. He tried to speak! The passage tells us that all the people in attendance knew that God had communicated with Zacharias through a vision. God had communicated that something was about to happen through a man that could not speak.
God’s will is not dependent on us, His believers, His followers. Even though Zacharias doubted what the angel had said to him, God did that miracle, Zacharais and his wife would have a son. Thank God that he is not dependent on us, or on our perfect execution of His will. If God’s will depended on our carrying it out, it would fail. We would fail. God cannot fail! His will is going to happen, and there is no way to stop it. God does His work in spite of us, and still involves us in that work. Oh how great He is, how gracious He is. To Him be all gory, honor, and power!
Pay attention to God’s working in life. He is active in our lives, I think we need to make an effort to be aware of His working in us. Look for it. Trust Him, as He guides us. When doubt creeps in look for his working to strengthen us.