In the Nativity story Mary’s Magnificat included two states of mind. In her monologue praising God after the angel has visited her, Mary talks of God’s having lifted up the humble and filled the hungry with good things.
This praise of God for His past deeds presents the idea that God can and will do the same again.
What must we do to become like Mary and receive God’s best gift, new birth? Hunger and humility seem to be the answer. Hunger not for physical food but for something more. We may not even be able to identify what it is we are hungry for, but recognizing we are not just wanting something we don’t have but sensing that we are hungry and our hunger borders on a kind of starvation.
We need desperately to have this hunger satisfied. And humility begins in that recognition. Humility becomes full blown in the realization that we do not know what will satisfy our deepest hunger nor can we discover and produce that good thing. When we admit our inability and are open to being served by something beyond ourselves, we have become humble. The first step in being filled.
Ann Glover O'Dell 