“Mary kept all these things, and pondered them in her heart.” (Luke 2:19)
We Americans are not a particularly pondering people. We like action. We run here and there, doing things. We get nervous when we have to sit still. Something going all the time. We count success by the stuff we have been able to accumulate around us by our own efforts. Even bank accounts, those invisible things full of numbers, count as part of the stuff. Those who are more “spiritual,” who would call themselves non-materialists, looking down their noses at the godless worldlings around them, may point to things they have done or are doing to validate their spirituality (tithing, regular church attendance, mission trips, volunteering at the local food pantry or thrift shop, etc.). Very little of this is interior. Very little has to do with pondering anything in their hearts.
Consider these things,” Paul writes
But God seems to value the interior life pretty highly. “Consider these things,” Paul writes to his young disciple Timothy. And Jesus told His eleven remaining disciples, men who would represent Him to the world after His death and resurrection – a tall order to fulfill – to abide in the vine. To abide means to remain, to be fully bound into the vine, part of it, so that its juice flows into and through them. Their job was to abide; it was God’s job to bring forth fruit. Of course, abiding does not mean being inactive; but surely, being active is not equivalent to abiding. The interior life first, then the outward works (which God-in-them would do: see Phil. 1:6).
How may we develop a more inward, “pondering” life? First, we must remember Mary’s song, called the “Magnificat” (which is Latin for its first words, “My soul magnifies the Lord”): that song contained numerous references to Old Testament scriptures. So the first requirement is that scripture must fill our hearts. Do not hide behind the excuse, “Oh, I can’t memorize scripture!” How hard have you tried? How many secular songs do you know by heart? Try it. Don’t worry if you don’t get it just right. Do what you can – and keep on doing it. Then think about it: “ponder” it: what does it mean? What does it mean to me? What needs to change in my life? How may I walk more fully in my relationship to God? How may I see God better? How can my vision of Him get larger? How can “my soul magnify the Lord”?
think about it: “ponder” it: what does it mean
Then, see – begin to see – your earthly life in the light of heaven’s illumination. “Mary had a little Lamb” (so the children’s rhyme goes): that little “Lamb” lay in her arms and looked up at her, burbling the sounds that infants make, as every mother has experienced. Yet this little child was the long-expected Messiah, the One Who would deliver Israel from her enemies (and the world from its great Enemy); and here He was, nestled in her lap! And before that, soon after His conception in her womb, when she had visited her cousin Elizabeth, the baby in Elizabeth’s womb had leapt for joy, recognizing the presence of His just conceived Lord. Consider these two womb-bound infants, and contrast that with the proposed “blobs” of Planned Parenthood! If we were a more “considering” people, abortion would never have gotten off the ground. How many millions have died because we have refused to think?
“Mary kept all these things, and pondered them in her heart.” What about you?