Car Chat Podcast with Amy & Jamy
Join Amy & Jamy as they chat in Amy's car (the glorious and overtly common white Nissan Pathfinder) each month and chat about one woman of the Bible. Women need other women. We just LOVE that God includes the lives of real, broken women in the Bible and reveals how he loves, interacts, and redeems them. We are excited to surround ourselves with this community of women and be encouraged as we lean into Jesus. You don’t have to remain alone in your faith even when no one is around.
Car Chat Podcast with Amy & Jamy
NT Episode 3: Anna - Women of the Bible Series
You could hold your breath and miss the mention of this woman in Luke. But we want to linger in her 3 verses and see what God wants to reveal to us about this elderly widow.
Today, we are chatting about ANNA. Her story is found in Luke 2:36-38.
She:
- had an undivided heart.
- was expectant.
- was thankful.
Anna's life challenges us to examine our own spiritual focus. Are we cultivating undivided hearts capable of recognizing God's movement around us? Are we living with expectancy, actively waiting for God to fulfill His promises? Or have we allowed distractions and disappointments to numb us when we should be anchoring ourselves more deeply in His presence?
Like Anna, we can choose to anchor ourselves to God rather than numbing ourselves with distractions. We can make daily choices that cultivate undivided hearts capable of recognizing God's presence in unexpected places.
We pray you are encouraged through the life of Anna. Who God was to her he is to you and me.
Much love for you,
Amy & Jamy
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DISCUSSION QUESTIONS: Episode 19 ~ Anna
*See episode description in the show notes. Review Luke 2:22-38 for her story.
1. What did you learn for the first time about Anna? What surprised you about her?
2. Waiting is a theme in today’s lesson; did you learn anything new from the example of Simeon and Anna about how to wait well?
3. Read Luke 2:34-35; putting yourself in Mary’s shoes. What do you think it was like to hear those words from Simeon?
4. Now (follow up to question 3), how might the timing of Anna’s arrival as well as the content of her message encouraged Mary?
5. Are there specific people or situations that are coming to your mind where you need to follow Anna’s example and give thanks and speak of Him? In other words, who is your Mary?
6. In the podcast Amy talks about the difference in praise and thanks. How would you describe what it means to praise and/or thank God. Do you see any differences between these two disciplines?
7. How does being thankful help us persevere?
8. Review the three descriptions from the podcast and discuss which one resonates the most with you. Anna:
· Had an undivided heart (See Psalm 86:11).
· Was expectant.
· Was thankful.
9. “Anna is one of us. Who God is to her, He is to me.” Who was God to Anna? What does that mean to you in your life today?
Let's stay connect:
IG: @amyruthpetersen
@jamyfisher
produced by: 4110 Ministries, LLC
Hey everybody, welcome to the Car Chat Podcast. I'm Amy, I'm Jamie, and each month we chat in my car about one woman of the Bible. And here we are again on this beautiful spring day with our windows open so nice. So if you hear beepings and car revvings, then you'll know that it is live action happening all around us.
Speaker 1:The nice cool breeze coming in, it does feel really good. Today we are here on this podcast to answer the question who is she? And as we do, we're going to discover two things she is a lot like me and who God is to her. He is to you and me, and it's just so fun over almost two years of doing this, Jamie, I know the community that I do feel I mean obviously with you and the women of the Bible, but then when I'm out and about and just talking with women that listen, it is just so much fun to understand what God is doing beyond our car in the community with other people. So today we're going to talk about a woman that I didn't know a lot about and she really, if you just hold your breath and read, you can just read over her story and be done with it.
Speaker 1:This is our New Testament, episode number three, and today we are talking about Anna three. And today we are talking about Anna, yes, and so for those of you who might be like me and just have breathed or closed your eyes and don't know where she's at, we are going to read about her story from Luke 2. So if you have it and you want to turn there, please do so, because it really is three verses in which we learn about Anna.
Speaker 1:So I'm going to read these three verses and then give you a little summary and then we'll get going. How's that sound? That sounds good. Okay, so we're looking at Luke 2, verses 36 through 38. There was also a prophet, anna, the daughter of Peniel of the tribe of Asher I love how they describe her and she was very old. She had lived with her husband seven years after her marriage and then was a widow until she was 84. Now do that math and that will give you some context for the heart of this woman. She never left the temple but worshiped night and day, fasting and praying, coming up to them, and she's talking about Jesus as a baby and his parents, mary and Joseph, in the temple, and Simeon is there as she was coming up to them at the very moment, which is not by coincidence Anna gave thanks to God and spoke about the child to all who are looking forward to the redemption of Jerusalem. So that's the story of Anna in the Bible.
Speaker 1:That's right, and so her summary is even shorter than that. I think I've gotten it down to one sentence. Anna, who is a prophetess and elderly widow, is described as a devout woman who spent her life in the temple fasting and praying and who recognized Jesus as the Messiah when he was presented there. And we're going to learn. I'm really interested, Jamie, on where our conversation will go with Anna.
Speaker 1:We can always fill things up with our words, yes, but there's a lot of opportunity to fill up the words for Anna's life. And just being curious, because she has been included in God's word for a reason and I just want to spend some time in her space and see what God will bring yes, me too. Through our conversation. Well, a few little interesting facts. Anna was the only named female prophet in the New Testament. Oh, yes, I thought that was interesting. Yeah, there's a number of them in the Olds.
Speaker 2:Yeah, a handful like less than five or five-ish right yeah.
Speaker 1:But she was the only female prophetess in the New Testament and she is only mentioned, like I've said before, in three verses of the New Testament, and I thought this was interesting. I read a scholar that said that her prophetess heads. Her in her description, it leads with explaining who she is in Scripture. Her in her description it leads with explaining who she is in Scripture.
Speaker 1:So it means then, possibly, that she even outranked Simeon interesting and his position in the temple and because he was praised as a right, as righteous and devout. Yes, and so that's interesting, that even maybe in her um there is somebody trying to start a car y'all, he finally got to go so I thought that was interesting about simeon, that she may have even um outranked him in the temple oh, that's that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's fascinating okay.
Speaker 1:Is there anything that you know about anna that you want to share?
Speaker 2:no, except one of the things when I read it's because it says how long she lived as a widow. But that could. It could be that number of years was after she was with it, so she could have even been older. Yeah. Yeah, so, but nonetheless she was old she was yeah, 84, plus whatever it would have been for her to be young 105,.
Speaker 1:I think yeah, I read that too and it sounded like some maybe she had gotten married when she was 14, which was customary, and so we can add that in 105. Yeah, could have been her age. That's old pretty remarkable, okay, so let's, especially because she runs up, I know and day and night.
Speaker 1:There's just so many things about her that I'm really curious to to dive into with you. So's, let's look at three ways to describe Anna, and we can then gather her into our community of broken yet redeemed women. First of all, the first way that I thought about describing her is that she had an undivided heart. I love that. Now, what? Here's what I mean by that. Her heart, her focus, her life, her purpose was not wrapped up in her family or politics, or cooking, or society, or even the gossip of the town. She was completely and fully and utterly devoted to God. There weren't portions of her love that were reserved for anything else other than God. Now, her life situation because she was a widow placed her in this utter place of devotion. But I think that it's a challenge to all of us to really measure and evaluate where our devotion is to the Lord.
Speaker 2:Well cause, if she was only married for seven years, that in itself is very, very sad. It is, but in those seven years, in their time and in their culture, there should have been three, four or five babies. So this isn't just she doesn't just represent kind of the tragic story of a young woman who lost her husband. Most likely everything she went into her expectations turned out a little bit different and rather than become whatever it was that she could have been, had she, had she chosen to be bitter about her loss, she, she just chose to live for God we are at a crossroads when things are hard and disappointing and and I wish it were one big moment and we'd step down a path and we'll forever be on that path.
Speaker 1:But what I have found in the loss and the disappointing things of life, it is a daily choice to be devoted to the Lord and to walk with him when you don't know the destination, which I think.
Speaker 2:I feel like we talked about that every day, to worry.
Speaker 1:I feel like this is like on replay and I believe it's the message of the gospel yeah, in our surrender and acceptance of him, he is with us.
Speaker 2:Yeah, there's there's purpose, he's with us.
Speaker 1:You mentioned that she is old either 85 or 100 I mean 84 or 105 and she was only married for seven years.
Speaker 2:That part is hard because she's just this little snapshot and we see her, I imagine her like in the. My memory always goes back to the little watercolor photos we had to illustrate all the Bible stories when I was a little kid in Sunday school. And it's just such a little tiny snapshot that I think it is. I think it's good for us, like you said, to stop for a second and consider her and the shortness of the life in her youth. What that would have been, but then the length of her faithful service. After that it's, we just kind of see an old lady with gray hair, you know, running through the temple. But this, this story, represents a lot more than that.
Speaker 1:You know, and that's so true, and I think sometimes we lose sight about who we are becoming in the middle of the journey and she probably or may not have been intentional about wanting to be who she was. That ended up being 84 or 105. But y'all, it is having an undivided heart. It is all about making those choices to choose and follow and be devoted to God, versus being bitter or hammering for your way, versus being bitter or hammering for your way.
Speaker 2:That leads us to becoming who we see Anna to be in these three verses and that's what makes her vision clear enough. When we get to that, that end part of her story, the only way she could have heard and seen and proclaimed what she did was because of the way that the choices that you've just described and how she lived every day. It's because of the way, the choices that you've just described and how she lived every day, coming off of a disappointment, how she lived those days in gratitude and openness and praising God and serving God and his people.
Speaker 1:And you know, for me, I think it's easy when I see people like this in church or in my neighborhood, or just people that I admire for their faith and their devotion to the Lord, it's easy for me to think that they're in an autopilot mode and not to consider the battle of faith that they may experience here and then getting up in the morning being lonely and sad. So I just think of Anna. Maybe when she was 21, she was a widow with no children, without kids. So what are you going to do now? Right, and the choice that she has to make at 21, at 31, at 41, 51, 61, 71, 81 mean that is a lot of years with the option to not choose God.
Speaker 2:Because what you just counted that we're kind of holding up our fingers and counting you weren't counting in years, you're counting in decades. Yes, and that's astounding.
Speaker 1:And I just think that it would do us all well to relate to her like that, yes, and not just see the last chapter of her story. Well, to relate to her like that, yes, and not just see the last chapter of her story, yes. That we are given here, that's right. And so two not to put on us a condemnation because we are the only ones that know our day to day, that's right. And not to feel like a failure because we don't line up to who anna is, yeah, but we're the only ones that really see the struggle of the choice that we make to be devoted to him absolutely.
Speaker 2:She grew up into that, the same as we can yes, okay.
Speaker 1:So I want to illuminate verse 37, when it said she never left the temple but worshiped night and day, fasting and praying, and we don't know how long of a ministry that was for her there, but just within the words of that it sounds like a very long time so we're talking like she is very resilient yes she had a lot of staying power.
Speaker 1:What a long, long life of ministry. So, based on the previous verses of what we know of her, and then how she responds to seeing Jesus, what would you say would be her secret for this resiliency and her ability to stay in the temple worshiping day and night, fasting and praying with that devotion? The?
Speaker 2:faithfulness of the constancy of her presence there, I guess oh, that's good presence, just being there, just yeah and she wouldn't.
Speaker 2:This is a thing. Regardless of her gifting or what other people thought about her, she she would have been in the court of women, so where she was. I think I read maybe the ESV study Bible said that there are possibly some living quarters there at the temple, but it's not that. It's not like she was going through to the temple every day. She was in the court of women and it would have been flooded with people. So what she was doing, her fasting and her praying and her serving, would have also included the people around her that were coming, sometimes maybe with heavy hearts, sometimes just to worship, sometimes just to just as many of us do, just to show up church when you're supposed to show up at church.
Speaker 1:But I wonder if just the constancy of her presence that she could have been anywhere but she chose to stay there because of that's what that place symbolized for them and was for them that that is a truth that we all need to grab hold of, because if you are at a place of a divisive heart, if you're a place of despondency with the Lord, we would challenge you right now to look about where you are and are you in the presence of God, but of his people and of his church? Because there is never a time in which I've gone to church when I didn't want to, that I didn't walk away. Glad I did, yeah. And so if you are taking a break from church but you are very despondent in your faith or struggling with some devotion issues with him, evaluate is it working yeah, a gentle invitation to come home.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I think that we see that with her, her position and her place of being there in the temple, I think too is a part of her resiliency and her communion with God. The way that there's three things. That says that she did, she worshiped, she fasted and she prayed. Those are some radical things on a continual basis to be and, as I've seen, people who go through loss and desperation. Those are the elements as they seek the Lord, that I see carries them through the hard hurt and ache and grief.
Speaker 1:And in a sense, it's the gift of the desperation when you find yourself in this place, because the very thing that got you there was not easy.
Speaker 2:Right, exactly, and so I think that's so good.
Speaker 1:Those of you who are listening. You have a choice. We all do every day, whether we're walking through a hard loss or just the mundane of life.
Speaker 2:Yeah, when, even in that language, in in verse 37, where it describes what she's doing within that language, there's, when I looked into this, there's an aspect of it's not done for compulsion or out of compulsion, it's done voluntarily. She's showing up there and something you just said that made me think of that we show up and we worship because we are choosing, we are making the choice to do that. So, whatever's happened that, you may or may not feel like it, but choosing to worship and to fast which can that can mean a lot of different things and to serve there's there's an aspect of that that anchors us to God and his people.
Speaker 1:I think so too, and I think that sometimes I well, when I look back and I see the times in which I felt so connected to the Lord and a part of his work, it's when I have been serving him. Yeah, definitely. And I think those times in which I feel disconnected from him are the times in which I'm not surrounding myself with people and having a heart to love them and serving in the way that he has gifted me to love them and serving in the way that he has gifted me. And so, if this kind of nudges your heart, if you're listening and and and wanting an undivided heart, but not knowing how to get there, start developing a habit and consistency of of going to church, of of connecting with him in community and worshiping him and talking with him, and in fasting. What are the what beyond just starving for 40 days and 40 nights? How else can you explain fasting?
Speaker 2:Well, and typically, when it's taught in here, it's taught as a spiritual discipline related to food that they, that they practiced. I think for us there's some other applications for it, I think. Anything that you need to feel comforted, to feel sustained, to feel nourished, all of those things and for, of course, food.
Speaker 1:Yeah, number one for me, but.
Speaker 2:I think that there could be some ways, some additional ways that when we just need that spiritual awareness, just need that certainty, just that, that way to put your kind of put your feet, get your feet anchored and remind yourself of where you are and whose you are, I think sometimes a denial of something that typically could become a distraction. To me, that's the point of fasting, and I am really careful not to make it legalistic, so I would never put a burden on anybody on what that should be. But I think, as far as what the Bible teaches it to be, yes, it's about food, but it can also I definitely think it can be anything that takes our focus and could be a distraction, a fake comfort for us when we need to just be disciplining ourselves and reminding ourselves of what it means to sit with the Lord.
Speaker 1:A fake comfort.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Okay, let's just call it out. Yeah, some fake comforts that I have been distracted by are Amazon shopping. There is something so intoxicating, absolutely, about getting on Amazon, clicking the button, buying some things and having it delivered, and and there was a season in which I mean, I was doing that every single day and it was a comfort. Yeah, um, food obviously is a major comfort. It's in the afternoons that I want salty chips and I can just go to town on those salty chips of food is.
Speaker 1:That's a big one, and it can be a real distraction, whether you are eating too much or not enough on either side of it, or just obsessed with your weight and the number on the scale when our thoughts are.
Speaker 2:Because what we're thinking about all the time is circulating in our head. That's really what we're worshiping.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:So, and it can be. It can be anything that we use to numb us. So, I mean, we, we have the things that we know we shouldn't be doing, that some of us still do, but there's also things that you can kind of put in this gray category of not that bad, but still they could like binging a show, which isn't bad. I mean, I do it, it's so I again.
Speaker 1:I don't want to cast that.
Speaker 2:But there's ways that we numb ourselves when we should be anchoring ourselves.
Speaker 1:Wow, okay, stop on that. There's ways that we numb ourselves in which we should be anchoring ourselves, and so what's the difference between numbing and anchoring?
Speaker 2:The intentionality. I think for me the numbing is just I can't deal with any of this. I need to, and and our brains do need to shut down sometimes. I think there's a place that leads us to rest with that, so I'm I'm for that. But um, numbing usually is because we don't want to deal with something, and anchoring means we want to deal, we want to take it to the Lord and deal with it with him.
Speaker 2:That's so good Listening to him and remembering him, because remembering God, remembering his words, his promises, the scripture that you've learned, the disciplines that you've learned, that will always happen on purpose. You will never just fall into that. I'm never going to just kind of drift toward a closer place with the Lord, that's so true, there's an intentionality to it. That will not come from nothing, definitely.
Speaker 1:Oh my goodness, Jamie, that is so good. I'm going to have to sit in that for a little bit, but it all leads to having an undivided heart. Yes, that's right and that's what I see in these few descriptions of Anna, of her place. Her focus, yes, and her purpose was all within verse um 37. Yeah, and what?
Speaker 2:she's able to do in those few little things. That view, that description of her, the timing of it, I think, is what shows us how aware and connected to God she was. What does that mean? What timing? Because I, she, she, it says, she comes up, it like the immediate time when she comes up is a time when they needed to hear what she had to say. And I think and you guys know, we've all experienced this when something's happening and maybe you're the only one that knows it and God sends just the right person in the right place and way and time to say or do or give you something that you're just like oh only God could have known, and then you get to share it with them and that's sweet. But the timing of that, I think, reveals that she was everything you've just described her undivided heart and the fact that she was totally tuned into God and was watching for him.
Speaker 1:Gosh.
Speaker 2:So as we finish up this one, point yeah, it says at that very hour, yeah, at that very hour.
Speaker 1:And I love it when scripture kind of pitches it as oh, so it happens, as they say in Ruth, At that very hour she walks up and God is always working and in the details, and he crafted that moment specially. But it wasn't just because she decided 24 hours ago that she was going to first of all devote to the Lord.
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly, or that she was watching everyone around her and saying when can I make my my best entrance? When will I be the most impressive? When's my little platform moment? It wasn't any of that, but she recognized Jesus and he was a baby. No one should have recognized him yet. Mary and Joseph, just barely, were wrapping their heads around all of it. So yeah, I think that's so good.
Speaker 1:And before we leave this undivided point, I want to just tilt the hand to social media and how that can kind of be the easy target for distracting, being a distraction in your devotion to the Lord. But y'all it is, and I for me, it is for me, and there's no template, there's no equation, there's nothing that's set forth that you have to do this, this and that. But you need to really evaluate your heart and if social media has become such a preoccupation for you that you have to, there's just this urge that you have to scroll and like and look and post, or else you're devastated or disjointed or disconnected from people, then that might be a red flag for you to say wait a minute, is my heart divided?
Speaker 2:Such a good challenge.
Speaker 1:Yes, and it's challenging me in this moment. One of the verses that I remember in my twenties, loving and taking hold of, is it's if you, if you feel divided, the first thing is not just to go to work to fix it, but to ask God to help you in it. And Psalm 86, 11 says teach me your way, o Lord, that I may rely on your faithfulness. Give me an undivided heart that I may fear your name. I love it and I just love that verse.
Speaker 2:It comes from him.
Speaker 1:It does, we can't create it. We could do all the things, but even the best of our own strength is failed.
Speaker 2:There's still fracture in it. Exactly, it's just appearance if we're trying to create it.
Speaker 1:So Anna had an undivided heart. But Anna also lived expectant. She was very expectant. And here's what expectant means it's a person who anticipates receiving something. It's a person who anticipates receiving something.
Speaker 2:Anna was constantly looking forward to the Messiah's arrival and the fulfillment of all of God's promises. That sounds like the definition of hope to me. Oh yeah, it is. Yeah, hope, there's an expectancy in it. Yeah, there is Kind of knowing that something that's been promised is going to happen.
Speaker 1:Gosh, but how long had she been waiting?
Speaker 2:I mean she's so long Decades.
Speaker 1:I mean, we don't know her spiritual journey of childhood and then marriage and then widowhood and then all those years before. We just know what she's like now. But what she's like now couldn't have just happened 10 years before, and so we know she had the faith builders that happened through those years.
Speaker 2:Yeah because we know what she's been busy doing and that's what was building it exactly and so to have hope in the coming messiah.
Speaker 1:How long has she been waiting? And the whole idea of waiting is looking for what you don't have yet or haven't seen yet, and the patience that comes in that or haven't seen yet.
Speaker 1:And the patience that comes in. That is pretty amazing, Because I you know, I'm also often very encouraged by Sarah and how for 25 years she knew she was going to have a kid but then was barren for all that time. 25 years is a long time. It's a whole generation. Yeah, 86 years is a crazy long. 84 years is a crazy long time, Like three or four and so I'm like the patience that it takes to wait and hope for the Lord while you're still walking in the loss and the unknown what did she do with disappointment in all of that time?
Speaker 1:I guess we could say that she talked to God about it, yeah, and she didn'tow in it. She went to work serving him by loving other people, and that's a, that's a lesson. Yes. So, so good, so she was expectant, she was waiting in anticipation, she had hope, and trust, um, and, and maybe because she was a prophetess, she, she, had these special insights of God. Yeah, some kind of special word from him or something, yeah of waiting, but the waiting part has a huge part to play. In what faith is it?
Speaker 2:does, and we, you know that's in the previous verses. When it talks about the story of Simeon it has. It talks about waiting as well. I mean it's definitely's, definitely the both of those people are are doing that.
Speaker 1:So she was expectant and I think we see that she could see what others could not see, because she spent time with the. Lord fully and in this present, absolutely. So in real life. Jamie, I was curious what does it look like that we're expectantly looking and living for Jesus today?
Speaker 2:Well, to have hope means there has to be something that you, that you are expecting like a, the substance of things hope for. Okay, so if we're being expectant, there's something we know about him. So I would trace it backwards from that. Okay, this is what I want to happen. It's like it's this bubble up here in my imagination. Well, if I've just made it up, it's, it's, it's all for me. There's not a lot of substance to that.
Speaker 2:But if I trace it back to, this is what I know God has said. This is who, this is what I know to be true of him. This is what he has said he's going to do. This is what he has done. This is what I see in my own life and I examine all my journals and my walk with him and other people that I share my life with, my friends or my sisters in Christ or my parents, all the okay. So these are the things we know God has done. We've seen it. Trace it back. How do we know that? What has he done in the scriptures? All of that, to me, goes back to understanding his word, the discipline of knowing and understanding his word. I think that might be why we're reminded she's a prophetess, because that has so much to do with God's word and his promises.
Speaker 2:So, as we put ourself in a place to know those things, then we have the right things to expect. We're expecting the right things. So for her or for me or for anybody, to have these things that we want to see happen in our life and we want to trust God for those, but we don't have any real assurance he's going to do it unless we know the thing, we know his character, we know what he's promised, we know what he's already done. I think that's where expectancy comes from.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think that's really good and really kind of measuring what it is that you are expecting. Are you expecting a certain outcome or are you expecting his goodness, his sovereignty, to play out? Yeah, because I get myself in trouble if I take what I know God's character to be and make it work to the outcome that I want.
Speaker 2:That's right when we make our expectancy about outcome. We will be disappointed every single time. And that's what we see in her example, because her, her expectancy was about worshiping him, which means to tell the truth about God. I mean, it was just about what she knew and what she gets to do. We see there, at the end she gives thanks and she speaks of him to everyone. So she gets to this wonderful privilege of recognizing God in Jesus and telling the truth about him, speaking, telling everyone who would listen the truth about him. You know, if I get to be older and I've lived the life walking older I'm already older.
Speaker 2:If I get to be old, old and I've spent my life walking with God, less concerned about outcome and destination, more concerned about knowing him well as I walk with him. Then, when he's busy, when he's doing something, I can recognize it, I can see it. It was like that is something. God just did that. And remember, he's always promised us these, this so this is who he is.
Speaker 2:I see him here and I get to be the one who is thankful for it. But also he gets to speak of it, speaking of him to everyone who is waiting, and there's nothing better than that when, than when you get to speak towards someone else in your life who's maybe a little behind you in the journey, and you get to say this is, I can see God in this, I can see, maybe, that this is where he was working and you remember, this is what we learned about him together and this is what he's doing and it pulls them to life, because that's what hope and faith, all of those, that's what those are. There's a feigning to flame of that. That is such a privilege to be able to learn it yourself, but also to be able to pass it on.
Speaker 1:Gosh, that's so true, that's so good. One of the verses about expectancy that I love is Psalm 135 through six. I wait for the Lord, my soul waits, and in his word I hope, my soul waits for the Lord more than a watchman for the morning, more than the watchman for the morning, and I just think that that concludes or encapsulates everything. That expectancy is yes, absolutely Okay. So Anna was had an undivided heart, she was expectant and finally she was thankful. So what was she giving thanks for in scripture? That?
Speaker 2:we see, she recognized Jesus and she as a baby, as a baby, she came up and saw. And one thing I do want to point out if you go back and look at the first, simeon is the first to greet Mary Joseph and Jesus and he would have been 40 days old. So I mean, he's what is that? In weeks?
Speaker 1:How do we do that? Like divided by seven, so that's six five to six weeks. Yeah, he's like a six week old baby.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they're poor. We know specifically that they're bringing their purification offering. It's basically like a baby dedication and purification for the mom. They can't bring like the fancy gift. They bring the poor person gift because that's who they are, that's what they can do. And they come and Simeon is like, oh, here he is and he recognized him. That's wonderful. But then to Mary he gives some not news, but in his greeting of Mary says some things that also would be hard. He talks about basically that he'll face a sword and that will also be something she faces. So there's a little bit I wonder if what she's facing right then is okay. I know that this baby is the Messiah. I mean she knows this already from her experience that she's had with the angels and all of it, the shepherds, everything that's happened in his birth narrative. But now here's Simeon also saying similar amazing, wonderful things about her baby. But also this little undercurrent of, and his life is going to be hard, hard, hard, hard, hard.
Speaker 1:And I think in the version for you.
Speaker 2:yes, and the version that I read said it will pierce your very heart. Yes, yes, absolutely, my gosh. It's, I mean, just really, really difficult. I think one of the things I read said it will you'll suffer as though you've been stabbed by a dagger that's what one of the translations oh my gosh and so I would imagine that right here she's feeling confused, frightened, excited, blessed.
Speaker 2:He's blessing them. That is when it says, at that very hour this is what Anna comes up to to this Mary, and I just wonder how Mary would have received her and what that would have been like. And then it says that she gives thanks to God and she speaks of this baby to all who were waiting for salvation. And I just wonder for Mary to see this and to be able to leave after this. And Anna, because she had been so thankful, because as soon as she sees him, she's just thanking God because of her undivided heart. She could see it, she could recognize it and she could praise him for it. And what the timing of that. We just don't have that kind of timing if we're not walking with the Lord moment by moment.
Speaker 1:Exactly, and it was just an overflow. I mean the fact, I mean the the shepherds had a star to find Jesus. Um, I mean, elizabeth was pretty amazing because it was just baby upon baby leaving the wombs because of the presence of Jesus. But. But here we are with Simeon and Anna, and there's no royalty that is identifying Jesus, except for the spirit in their heart.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I love that. Liz Curtis Higgs says that when no one else in authority was proclaiming the birth of the Messiah, this old woman was telling the world.
Speaker 2:I love that she knew. She knew him. And because she walked with him and worshiped him and kept herself from being distracted by other things and served him, she saw him. And because she walked with him and worshiped him and kept herself from being distracted by other things and served him, she saw him the moment he became flesh, and that is such a that's such a beautiful thing for us to be able to see God at work like that.
Speaker 1:Oh, I want to see him.
Speaker 2:And to encourage one another like that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I want to be an old lady who tells others about Jesus.
Speaker 2:Yeah, just telling the truth to all. Telling the truth. All who are waiting, all who are waiting, all who are waiting. So many people around us are just waiting in pain for God to do something, and they just are so distracted and overwhelmed and overcome, and they're so just buried under lies and believing things that aren't true about him and themselves. How amazing if we could be the one that could speak the truth.
Speaker 1:Speak the truth over them of God's grace and love and the good news to them, yes, and to be able to see it, because sometimes I'm so busy in my day that my eyes aren't open to those hurting around me 100%. And her eyes were open to see who Jesus was, yeah, and her heart was responsive, in gratitude for what God had done, but then also to tell others, in the overflow of it, of who he is. Oh, I just love that.
Speaker 2:I love her.
Speaker 1:I do too, and I think I think that there is such power and thank having a thankful heart. It wasn't something that she just had on her to-do list for that day, but it was an overflow of the devotion. So here's here's a question that I was curious, as I've been kind of pondering in my head in what ways is thankfulness both the result of devotion but also the fuel for resiliency?
Speaker 2:Ooh, the fuel for resiliency. That is good, yeah, because when we are thankful it keeps our perspective less selfish, it keeps our gaze in the right place, right when I'm being thankful, even when I'm just saying, when I'm just recognizing and saying it when my heart really isn't in it yet. But the reality of the discipline of giving thanks makes me actually thankful.
Speaker 2:Exactly, and I think, practicing that, looking for ways to do that, having a way that you, that you practice it or that I practice it, is going to help and that makes me more resilient because it keeps me, it makes me more quickly able to shift perspective and see it God's way. And, man, no one has practiced this more. The best example of this in my life the last few minutes has been my husband. You just wouldn't believe it. Uh, every, he feels all the, all the things I mean. He knows and he, he, he doesn't shy away from the difficulty and the disappointments and the pain that the last nine months have brought, but he is very quick to switch his entire with discipline, switch his entire gaze to make sure he's looking at it the way God would and and sticking with that and that perspective has made him more resilient in every way.
Speaker 2:It makes, it keeps our hearts more healed. It protects us from bitterness. It protects us from making mistakes in our relationships out of disappointment where, instead of, you know, seeing something in my marriage or with my relationship with my kids or a church member or someone that I'm in community with, instead of just seeing it my way, and only the way I'm hurt, I can see it with a more full picture, the way God sees it, and I can. I will always be more gracious if I'm looking at them with God eyes than than with my own, and he, just he, protects us from so much when we, when we are thankful.
Speaker 1:What a beautiful example that you've been able to witness over these last months with your husband.
Speaker 1:That came to mind just really quickly because the word resilience has come to mind a lot with him and thankfulness is a part of that, without doubt, and one of the things that I have been questioning and been confused about just in Scripture throughout my journey was what is thankfulness really versus what is praise? Just in scripture throughout my journey was what is thankfulness really versus what is praise? And I have learned to define praise as really proclaiming in God for who he is, all the characteristics of who he is. That's praise. But then thankfulness is giving credit for what he does. Yes, that's so good, and so they both are needed. Both are a part of our devotion and our conversation with him, but we see that remembering what he has done and what he is doing opens your eyes to see him in movement in other places of your life.
Speaker 2:Without praise, we can't see ways to be thankful. But without thankful, without being thankful, we don't, really, we're not willing to give praise and praises.
Speaker 2:You know, when I've studied praise before, it means telling you the truth, means knowing the truth about ourselves and telling the truth about God. So that's all you got to do and they can start ugly and they can get to a really good place. You start with because you can't tell the truth about God without telling the truth about yourself. I mean no one. It's just Because you can't tell the truth about God without telling the truth about yourself.
Speaker 1:Oh my gosh, I mean no one, it's just it's not sustainable.
Speaker 2:It's not. It just you'll lose interest, if nothing else, even if you're trying it in a, in some kind of a fake discipline. But knowing the truth about God, telling the truth about God, will always make us see ourselves more clearly in every single way, which leads us to repentance and gratitude and thankfulness and all of the things that lead us to growth.
Speaker 1:And to become the old lady. And then we're Annas, yeah, whose name means grace. Whose name means grace it does she lived up to her name? Yeah, and we pray that for each of you listening, we pray that you will have an undivided heart of devotion to the Lord, that you will be expectant, hoping and looking for the ways in which he is faithful and he moves, and that you will also be thankful and remembering all that he's done and then moving forward in hope.
Speaker 1:In that, absolutely, because who was Anna? She had an undivided heart, she was expectant and she was thankful. And who would you say that God was to her?
Speaker 2:I think he was her soulmate, I think he was her greatest joy goodness.
Speaker 1:She is one of us ladies, and who God is to her, he is to you and me. So thank you so much for listening and we will see you next time.
